Xah Talk Show 2021-04-24 Lisp and Wolfram Language Syntax Isomorphism and Design

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lisp syntax, called symbolic expression (aka sexp)
(f ...)
(f (f ...) ...)
use space to separate atoms, for example
(f 3 4)

Wolfram Language syntax
f[]
f[ f[...], ...]

use comma to separate atoms, for example
(f 3 4)
f[3 , 4]

these are matchfix notation:

example, array, or list in most language
[3 4 5]

example, code block
{ return 3 + 5; }

Side note, nameing of things. Naming of concepts. Jargons. Example: lambda vs Function. Example: list, array, tuple, vector. Example: hash, hash table, dictionary, map, associative list.


common infix notation for polynomial
x^3 + y * z^2
in lisp form would be:
(plus (power x 3) (times y (power z 2)))

notation of sugar syntax, is not well defined. for example i++ vs i=i+1. these are not syntactically equivalent, nor semantically equivalent

;; this creates a function, and apply it to two arguments, 2 and 3. it should return 5
((lambda (x y) (+ x y)) 2 3 )

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