Re: why not "stripes" in: (let ((zebra 'stripes) ... ; strings vs symbols?

[Rustom Mody]

Emanuel Berg writes:

> > The original idea was to bring to the Lisp environment
> > many of the advantages of ML; specifically
> > pattern-matching and later type checking.

> So they did a new language just to get pattern-matching
> in Lisp! I'm unsure if that is sheer folly *or*
> dedication that should be admired.

I wrote a destruct macro in scheme -- gives most of what pattern
matching gives in the SML language family -- all of 91 lines.  So much
for lisp not having pattern matching.

Type-discipline is very different issue altogether.  I dont believe
that any macro (system) can do that for lisp.
The issue is that in CS one can choose structuring or universality.
Some of the most powerful ideas in CS come from universality considerations, eg
- von Neumann machines equivalencing data and code
- Turing machine -> universal turing machine
- Unix -- the byte stream as able to carry any and all data
[How much we take for granted the last will be clear if you see what a
file meant
to an earlier generation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_set_%28IBM_mainframe%29   ]

However at some point people become frightened of what Yuri describes
> Like walking over a bridge with no safety rail in sight.
and start putting up railings -- structurings.