From 35550adfc7fa427137bed200696af424df8633da Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Robby Zambito Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2023 00:26:01 -0400 Subject: Added prefix notation post --- .../index.md | 68 ++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 68 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/posts/languages-that-do-not-use-prefix-notation-are-weird/index.md (limited to 'content') diff --git a/content/posts/languages-that-do-not-use-prefix-notation-are-weird/index.md b/content/posts/languages-that-do-not-use-prefix-notation-are-weird/index.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..99172b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/posts/languages-that-do-not-use-prefix-notation-are-weird/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,68 @@ +--- +title: "Languages that do not use prefix notation are weird" +date: 2023-06-23T00:35:43-04:00 +type: "post" +draft: false +tags: [lisp] +description: "For some reason, prefix notation is often associated with..." +--- + +I don't mean that you should avoid such languages, but rather that they are exceedingly uncommon. + +For some reason, prefix notation is often associated with Lisp. +In reality, there are very few languages that do _not_ use prefix notation. +Off the top of my head, I can only think of Forth, and Postscript. + +Consider the following: + +```c +foo(a, b) +``` + +What language is this? +Well, it could be C, C++, Java, Javascript, Python, C#... + +Great. +That looks like a normal procedure call. +It could be one of many languages, assuming this is not a complete statement (missing a semicolon in some languages). + +Now, what if we remove the useless comma: + +```c +foo(a b) +``` + +And let's get a little crazy, and move the opening parenthesis to the begining of the expression: + +```lisp +(foo a b) +``` + +Now what language do we have? +Well, it could be Common Lisp, Clojure, Elisp, Scheme... +Generally, it is some dialect of Lisp. + +How did we move the operator in relation to the operands? +We moved it nowhere. + +The only reason that prefix notation is associated with Lisp, is because most other languages have a few inconsistencies. +Namely, arithmetic operators like `+`, `-`, `*`, and `/`. +_These_ operators are usually given an _infix_ syntax, and it is placed between its operands: `a + b`. +In most programming domains, the vast majority of operations are procedure calls - not arithmetic operations. + +Lisp does not have this inconsistency. +The operator is always placed before any operands. +Expressions like `(+ a b)` may look strange at first, but just consider: `+` is simply the chosen name for the `add` procedure. +If we use the name `add` instead, we get: + +```lisp +(add a b) +``` + +And if we apply the inverse of the previous transformation, we get: + +```c +add(a, b) +``` + +Which is really not all that strange :) \ No newline at end of file -- cgit