hebigo VS jsource

The Lissp transpiler incrementally compiles and executes each top-level form to Python. It needs to do this in case there's a macro definition that might affect the compilation of a subsequent form. If it's only executing definitions, this is harmless, but if you want to precompile the main module, it needs the guard, or the side effects will happen too.

If you want Python to be as customizable as Lissp, check out Hissp (and Hebigo).

Python's lambdas can have as many lines as you want. Just wrap parens around it. Hissp uses this form as a compilation target. Its REPL shows the Python compilation. Play around with it til you get it: https://github.com/gilch/hissp

The original Lisp's S-expression syntax was just supposed to be an intermediate language used by the compiler when processing the real language based on M-expressions, which kind of never took off. Numerous alternatives to S-expressions have been proposed, and some retain homoiconicity, another feature diagnostic of a Lisp (and one that ECMAScript lacks). For example, see Hebigo's readme, which shows a direct correspondence between its Python-like syntax and that of Hissp's default reader (Lissp), which uses the S-expressions. Julia can also be written in S-expressions, but this usually only used in macro definitions.

I think LoL is too CL-specific. If you know both languages first, you can pretty much translate, but since they'd be trying to learn Lisp in the first place, this is a bad idea.

On the other hand, [Hissp][1] has a pretty good tutorial for anyone coming from a Python background.

[1]: https://github.com/gilch/hissp

Hebigo: a whitespaceLisp isomorphic to Hissp that looks like Python.

The one other example I know that morphs the language to that extent and to the detriment of readability by C programmers is the J interpreter[1,2]. But, once again, nobody (that I’ve read) claims it’s good or clear C. (Good C for those who speak J, maybe; I wouldn’t know.)

For a way to morph C syntax that does make things better, see libmill[3].

[1] https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Essays/Incunabulum

[2] https://github.com/jsoftware/jsource/tree/master/jsrc

[3] https://250bpm.com/blog:56/

Oh damn Whitney C representation.

I develop J btw

No, it was rhetorical, because it's obviously (to an APL-family programmer), not bad!

Your cultural prejudice is showing. There are good reasons APL is written the way it is, and this example is simply bringing those benefits to C by writing it in the dense APL style. There are other APL derivatives, like J[1] that are written the same way. These projects are well-maintained. They aren't collapsing under a load of technical debt. The style works. To them, it's clean code.

[1]: https://github.com/jsoftware/jsource

Recently, I wanted to write a simple piece of code in J, but immediately found a bug. I went ahead to fetch the source to see if I can fix it. But, hell no. I couldn't believe my eyes. Is this how someone programs, really? I just can't believe it didn't go through some kind of obfuscator.

Here are some samples, but almost anything in the repository is beyond me:

https://github.com/jsoftware/jsource/blob/master/jsrc/xo.c

You can view the code, but is not open source: https://github.com/jsoftware/jsource/blob/master/license.txt

This is the same dense style used in J.

All-in-all this example doesn't seem too bad. It's clear what happens and is easy to follow. If you wan't to see something remarkably terribly, check out Whitney style. It's used in APL/J/K family interpreters. Keep in mind, financial institutions run that code.