Readable s-expressions for Lisp-based languages: Lots of progress!
Lots has been happening recently in my effort to make Lisp-based languages more readable. A lot of programming languages are Lisp-based, including Scheme, Common Lisp, emacs Lisp, Arc, Clojure, and so on. But many software developers reject these languages, at least in part because their basic notation (s-expressions) is very awkward.
The Readable Lisp s-expressions project has a set of potential solutions. We now have much more robust code (you can easily download, install, and use it, due to autoconfiscation), and we have a video that explains our solutions. The video on readable Lisp s-expressions is also available on Youtube.
We’re now at version 0.4. This version is very compatible with existing Lisp code; they are simply a set of additional abbreviations. There are three tiers: curly-infix expressions (which add infix), neoteric-expressions (which add a more conventional call format), and sweet-expressions (which deduce parentheses from indentation, reducing the number of required parentheses).
Here’s an example of (awkward) traditional s-expression format:
(define (factorial n)
(if (<= n 1)
1
(* n (factorial (- n 1)))))
Here’s the same thing, expressed using sweet-expressions:
define factorial(n)
if {n <= 1}
1
{n * factorial{n - 1}}
A sweet-expression reader could accept either format, actually, since these tiers are simply additional abbreviations and adjustments that you can make to an existing Lisp reader. If you’re interested, please go to the Readable Lisp s-expressions project web page for more information and an implementation - and please join us!
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