this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2025

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When people encounter Lisp syntax for the first time (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago by cm0002@lemmy.world to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev

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[–] Mika@piefed.ca 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The most interesting part about Lisp is homoiconicity:

(+ 1 1 2) is literally a list with symbol "+" and 3 numbers.

Which allows to build the most powerful macro possible, manipulating code (with data as a tree-like structures) and changing it into whatever else at compile time.

Now if only there was any good use for macros, this would be the best language 🙃

[–] RecallMadness@lemmy.nz 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Threading is a great case for a macro.

(-> x (* 2) (/ 3) (- 1))

Is the same as (- (/ (* x 2) 3) 1)

[–] Mika@piefed.ca 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure it's not like it has no uses, but it's something languages have built-in as syntax sugar or operators, and you rarely need to built your own macro for anything.