Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme,alt.lang.scheme.scsh
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From: jeff@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Perl, English, syntax for Scheme and shells (was Re: scsh in scm ...)
Message-ID: <DKvo0t.2oL.0.macbeth@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <1996Jan2.182220.11213@netlabs.com> <4cc999$424@jive.cs.utexas.edu> <cbartley-0301961421440001@198.95.246.147>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 19:41:17 GMT
Lines: 37

In article <cbartley-0301961421440001@198.95.246.147> cbartley@macromedia.com (Curtis Bartley) writes:

>[...] It's much easier and faster to type
>
>   > cd source
>
>Than 
>
>   > cd("source"); 
>
>I personally wouldn't use a shell that required me to type the latter at a
>command prompt, if I had any choice.  However, if all I were doing were
>writing script files, [...]
>
>It seems to me that the two styles don't need to be exclusive.  The basic
>shell scripting language could be based on a more traditional programming
>language (like scheme).  However, to facilitate immediate command line
>usage, a raw command line would be preprocessed to convert it from the
>easy to type on the fly form to the standard form.  For example:
>
>   > cd source
>
>Would get preprocessed to
>
>  > (cd "source")

I think that's a good idea.

FWIW, some Lisps (e.g. Lisp 1.5 and InterLisp) had a top-level that
worked in "evalquote" mode.  You'd type a function name, then a list
of arguments.  The arguments would not be evaluated.  In some of these
systems, you'd put parens around the arglist, but clearly that's not
necessary.  The Lisp Machine top-level may be an example.

So in a way, this idea goes back almost to the beginning.

-- jeff
