Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

[Matthew Kennedy]

Alex Martelli <aleaxit at yahoo.com> writes:

[...]

>
> Without macros, when you see you want to design a special-purpose
> language you are motivated to put it OUTSIDE your primary language,
> and design it WITH its intended users, FOR its intended purposes, which
> may well have nothing at all to do with programming.  You parse it with a
> parser (trivial these days, trivial a quarter of a century ago), and off you 
> go.  

...and off I go.  A parser for our new DSL syntax is one thing, but
now I'll need a compiler as well, a symbolic debugger understanding
the new syntax would be nice, and perhaps an interactive environment
(interpreter) would be helpful.  If we get time (ha!), lets create an
tools to edit the new syntax.

Seems like a lot of work.

I think I'll stay within Lisp and build the language up to problem
just as Paul Graham describes in On Lisp[1].  That way I get all of
the above for free and in much less time.

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html


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