If I'm hungry I would say "Hey, give me a Hot Dog".
I wouldn't be drawing diagrams of synapses and how the chemical signals flow when I'm thinking about that Hot Dog.
The issue of language parsing and how Lisp-like it is, it's incredibly irrelevant.
I wouldn't be drawing diagrams of synapses and how the chemical signals flow when I'm thinking about that Hot Dog.
The issue of language parsing and how Lisp-like it is, it's incredibly irrelevant.
I actually think that's a pretty good analogy for what programmers do. You program the give function to accepted the variables nominative (you), accussative(hot dog), and dative(me). Now lets say you want to create multiple functions (give, send, take) that are operators on nominative, accussative, dative and want to reuse code easily. Or you want to use your "give" function to define what a "gift" is. No problem in LISP.
But I just don't get the correlation between its direct representation as syntax trees and being more natural to people (which the parent was arguing).
A language can have hooks for evolving into what you want, it's just incredibly hard to do it without a LISP syntax. But natural language ain't easy to parse either.
My argument was actually that things modeled after genetically evolved structures share in the advantages of increased genetic fitness inherent in that design. i.e. Survivability and future-proofness. [i.e. the OP may indeed not need to ever learn another language before he dies] It was not an argument that genetically evolved structures are easy to grok.