Re: Scripting language takes a silicon turn

["Michael T. Richter" <ttmrichter@...>]

On Thu, 2006-26-01 at 10:11 +0000, Lisa Parratt wrote:
> Strikes me that what people are *really* screaming for at the moment is 
> some kind of hygienic macro system so they can redefine Lua's syntax ;)

I like syntax-extending languages, actually.  (Lua is almost there --
almost.)  

My favourite of the "bondage-and-discipline" languages was always Dylan
because it allowed custom syntax for structures I used often.  The DB
interface for Dylan, for example, a standard extension for FO's
implementation, allowed you to, for all practical purposes, enter DB
expressions in something very convenient for tabular data access while
keeping all the strict type controls, etc. in place transparently.
Light years ahead of using crap like embedded SQL, ODBC, ADO, et al.

Currently I'm playing around with a little language called Io that...
well, it's not exactly "syntax-extending" so much as
"syntax-agnostic".  :-)  I'm simply smitten by the staggering variety of
syntax primitives which are being built right now in the push to v1.0 of
the language.  They're talking about variations on switch/cond/select
statements right now and every day there's a dozen different variations
on the syntax while people play with them.  All of them written in Io --
not even in a macro system, but in Io proper.

If Lua moved a bit in that direction?  I wouldn't really object.

--
Michael T. Richter
Email: ttmrichter@gmail.com, mtr1966@hotpop.com
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