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From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2024 21:41:56 -0000 (UTC)
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On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 08:32:48 -0000 (UTC), Muttley wrote:

> Ugh. No wonder the language fell out of fashion. Looks like some kind of
> hacked up Basic.

The BASIC comparison is just ignorant, but a lot of the ugliness comes 
from the traditional “parenthesis pileup” layout. I prefer to write my 
LISP code in a different way.

One of the key things about LISP is homoiconicity. That is, the language 
explicitly includes an AST representation made out of objects defined in 
the language itself. This allows for a robust token-based macro facility, 
for example. Contrast this with the fiddliness and fragility of #define in 
C and C++, for example.