[Gnu-arch-users] Re: Tla spork

[Stefan Monnier]

> Then, on two and a half occasions, over the following few years,
> I actually went through the first hour of the guile tutorial,
> perhaps a year or more apart between each attempt.

I really would like to understand, what's the big difference between writing
things as

        if (a) { b } else { c }
or as
        (if a b c)

I mean, yes, there are differences in terms of legibility, but if you ignore
such details, it's really all the same.

The only real difference is that Lisp's syntax, like XML, is layered such
that a fixed generic parser can parse the first layer, while the second
layer (where semantics is added) can be manipulated as data structure.
But when you're writing programs, it makes no difference whatsoever.

So if you could try to explain to me why you find Lisp/Scheme so hard, I'd
love to try and understand you.


        Stefan