> All Lisps have "special forms" which are evaluated uniquely and differently > from function application and are therefore reserved words by another name. > For example, Clojure has def, if, do, let, var, quote, fn, loop, recur, > throw, try, monitor-enter, monitor-exit, dot, new and set!.
Yes, but the special forms are not distinguishable from user defined macros --- and some Lisp-implemantations special forms are another implementations macros. E.g. you can choose to make `if' a macro that expands to `cond' or vice versa. I do not know whether you are allowed to shadow the name of special-forms. > If you count reserved tokens, I guess Lisp reserves parentheses and > whitespace? Not if you are using Common Lisp. There you can install reader-macros that act on characters in the input-stream. (Most macros act on stuff in the already parsed syntrax tree.) Forth is also a remarkably flexible language in this regard. Matthias. _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
