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

[gunter@netcom2.netcom.com (Mike Gunter)]

In article <4cgbbj$slm@nkosi.well.com> djello@well.sf.ca.us (Darius Bacon) 
writes:


   Paul Wilson proposed a syntax for shell programming:
   >   1. Common special forms like IF use balanced keywords (maybe palindromic,
   >      as above, maybe not) which act as implicit parentheses as well as
   >      specifying which special form is meant.

   I think you can get the benefits of this idea with a loop-macro style of
   syntax, like so:

   (define (gosh wow)
         (let (x = (* wow wow))
                  (y = 42)
          in (if foo
                  then (+ x y)
                  else (- x))))

In Haskell, this is:
  gosh wow =  let x = wow * wow
                  y = 42
              in if foo
                 then x + y
                 else (- x)

I believe Haskell is worth checking out if you're designing a syntax
(or any other aspect of a language, really.)  One good starting point
for more info is:
  http://www.cs.yale.edu/HTML/YALE/CS/haskell/yale-fp.html

                cheers,
                mike gunter