s-expressions considered harmful

http://www.dwheeler.com/readable/retort-lisp-can-be-readable.html

http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.371875.57

>>80
You can easily do this is Ruby: let's extent build in Range class and make it OO
What if I hate OOP?

>>80
Ruby...

Ruby is:
- when OOP replaces common sense;
- when people write "begin end begin begin end end..." instead of code;
- when program is so slow, that you can have a tea party, while it multiplies two 10x10 matrices;
- when code like 12.5.integer? or 3.times {puts "Ruby rocks!"} considered beautiful.


# This is a block. It can be passed to a function like so `function your-block' and is called within that function with `yield your-bar'
{|bar| bar.foo}

# This is a proc. It is called like so `your-proc.call' and it can be assigned to a variable or passed to a function directly.
proc {|bar| bar.foo}

# This is almost the same as a proc.
lambda {|bar| bar.foo}

# This is a method. It is called like so `foobar.baz your-bar' and it can't be passed to a function directly.
def baz(bar)
  bar.foo      
end

Such is the elegance of ruby.

>>80
I think they keep forgetting that Lisp is written in Lisp on top of a bunch of primitives: all the CLOS systems, the Prometheus prototype OO system, Racket's class system, all the other OO systems, loop, iterate, foof-loop, Shivers' loop, Racket's for, match, optional and keyword arguments to lambda, condition/exception systems, lazy evaluation (delay, lazy, force), ...
I can continue, but I think it's enough. I'd like to know how he'd write a pattern matcher that doesn't feel like an hack (i.e. usable in real world without feeling dirty) in Ruby.

>>85
doesn't feel like an hack
Ruby
You must be joking.

>>86
I just said that you can't.

>>87
No you didn't.

>>81
this guy clearly only partially knows what he's talking about.