Re: Common Lisp "let"

[Ken Anderson <address@hidden>]

I don't think this quote from your web page, 
http://www.prescod.net/xml/sexprs.html, is particularly accurate:

"
Since the late 50s there has existed a subculture of computer science 
devoted to the obscure but sophisticated programming language
known as Lisp. The Lisp cabal is understaqndably frustrated to see their 
ideas reinvented or copied elsewhere. One recent source of
consternation has been the popularity of XML. There exists a persistent 
meme that XML is just a new-fangled, verbose form of
s-expressions.
"

I believe McCarthy suggested in 1982, in a German journal, that 
S-expressions be used as a medium of communication between 
companies.  Here's his view on the subject: 
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/cbcl.html.

XML is like the initial pattern matching half of a Lisp macro.  A DTD 
defines the valid shape of an XML expression.  It can indicate a violation, 
but not actually construct the corresponding domain object.  Hopefully some 
extenstion  to XML can do that.

It would be really useful, if there was a way to read an XML expression and 
convert it into an object in my language.

At 12:16 PM 6/2/2002, Paul Prescod wrote:
>As long as we're admitting that redundancy can be a good thing, maybe I
>should take a pot-shot at the usual Lisp-ers presumption that XML is
>highly redundant by accident, because its specifiers did not know about
>S-expressions. Actually, the redundancy helps error checking and
>reporting, just as it does in the Scheme "let" example.
>
>  * http://www.prescod.net/xml/sexprs.html
>
>  Paul Prescod