Abstract
There are those who will tell you that LISP is an acronym for LISt Processor and others who insist that it stands for Lots of Infuriatingly Silly Parentheses. Both camps have good arguments to back them up. Lisp is a language which deals almost exclusively in list structures, and there are a great many brackets in a typical Lisp program. Paradoxically, Lisp derives much of its power as a programming language from the fact that it is limited in this way, and, as we shall see, this philosophy leads automatically to the proliferation of similar symbols (which just happen to be brackets) which so incense Lisp’s detractors.
The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. “Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” he asked.
“Begin at the beginning”, the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
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© 1990 Springer-Verlag London Limited
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Jones, R., Maynard, C., Stewart, I. (1990). Some Basic Ideas. In: The Art of Lisp Programming. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1719-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1719-3_1
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-19568-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-1719-3
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