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Comment by gf000

2 days ago

If you squint enough, JS is a lisp..

Define a goddamn language, syntax is not enough to define one! What are the semantics? Without that you are just talking about syntax trees like they would mean anything

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gf000

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bsaul  2 days ago

never understood why people say that: the syntax for defining code seems quite different from the syntax defining data structure. There's no homoiconicity in javascript..

  • gf000  1 day ago

    And that's just syntax, it doesn't give you a programming language at all.

    JS is a dynamically typed language with prototypical inheritance objects that work like universal key-value maps for the most part. It is also mutable.

    Clojure is a dynamically typed language with key-value maps. It is also immutable.

    You can surely see where I'm going , the underlying semantic model is the meaningful part. Homoiconicity doesn't give you anything special if your language can parse itself and can eval code. It just makes these completely abstract implementations simpler.

    • zelphirkalt  1 day ago

      > Homoiconicity doesn't give you anything special if your language can parse itself and can eval code. It just makes these completely abstract implementations simpler.

      Well, in a way it does give you something: By making expression of things like macros simpler, it makes them sometimes worthwhile, and makes it a reasonable request to have this kind of meta programming in your language at all. Without homoiconicity such things become even more difficult endeavors and often unjustifiable for the language design and its implementation.

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throwaway81523  2 days ago

> If you squint enough, JS is a lisp..

Yes, that is true. I'm not big on the idea that Lisp is defined by parentheses. The implementation strategies are another way to look at it. That doesn't capture it either, but it's an angle to try.

  • gf000  2 days ago

    So then what it is? Because otherwise it's a magical nothing-term to which everything lisp people like applies, but no criticism can ever reach it because "that's not really lisp, see it's different in this other implementation"

    • Pay08  1 day ago

      In my mind, it's 2 distinct criteria: interactivity and the manipulation of symbols (whether those are implemented as symbols or identifiers doesn't really matter). I don't know about Erlang, but from the admittedly little JS I've written, I believe it achieves both criteria, even if it's worse at them than a "proper" Lisp.