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A Lisp adventure on the calm waters of the dead C (2021) (mihaiolteanu.me)
lproven 2 hours ago [-]
Previously:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28851992

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44359454

No comments on any of them.

It sounded of interest to me, but I read it and closed the tab within a page or so as it wandered off into tech arcana. Shame. There may be an interesting idea in here but it's phrased in terms I think few will be able to follow and understand.

I did not finish it but I saw no mention of the lambda calculus or of currying, both of which -- from my very meagre understanding -- seem directly relevant to what I understood to be the core point, which seems to be about anonymous functions.

tmtvl 1 hours ago [-]
The core point, to me, seemed to be about limiting factors in language extension. To allow something like:

  my_if (points <= 100, printf ("%D", points), error ("Invalid point total"));
Where the various parameters are lazily evaluated. Or like:

  frobnicate (frazzle: foo, frozzle: bar, frizzle: baz);
Where frazzle, frozzle, and frizzle are position-independent keyword variables.

Allowing those in C would require a modicum of effort, while other languages make these kinds of syntax extension fairly easy.

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