Re: Perl, English, syntax for Scheme and shells (was Re: scsh in scm ...)

["Stefan Monnier" <stefan.monnier@lia.di.epfl.ch>]

In article <y5ag2dwxkmk.fsf@graphics.cs.nyu.edu>,
David Fox <fox@graphics.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
] Could you elaborate?  What is it about what you look for and
] expect from an interactive shell that requires a different syntax?
] The examples you give show that the languages you use now happen
] to have different syntaxes, but don't explain why they must be
] different.

I don't know for his personal reasons, but in my case there are a few:

- every keystroke counts in interactive use
- I don't really care if my script is 20 or 50 lines long, as long as it was
  easy to write and is easy to read.
- I never use complex control structures in interactive use. Or when I use them,
  I don't care as much whether it takes me 2 or 5 lines. I'd rather have a nice
  than a terse syntax in this case.


        Stefan