There seem to be two standards as for LISP: Common LISP is a huge monolithic language, with hundreds of built-in constructs for a megabyte worth of run-time system (not talking about add-on modules). Scheme is a minimalistic, skimmed, version of LISP, with simplest constructs upon which everything is built.
In LISP, everything is parsed as S-exp's (Symbolic EXPressions), which
are indeed balanced parenthesized expressions of atomic symbols. These
S-exp are trivially translated into structured data, which is interpreted
very easily. The basic constructor is the (syntactically parenthesized)
list of S-exp's, and a list is evaluated by first evaluating each element,
then applying the function denoted by its first element to the rest of the
list as arguments.
LISP is really a nice language, but S-exp's are annoying to the
non-hackers (particularly if you don't use a LISP editor like EMACS that
will help you balance your expressions). Actually, the S-exp's are LISP's
only, but deep flaw: if LISP had a freeer syntax, it would fulfill all
the requirements for (a basis to) Tunes' HLL. LISP would truely be the
one universal language but for that !
Back to the Tunes HLL Subproject.
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