[Haskell] Re: [Haskell-cafe] Haskell versus Lisp

[Glynn Clements]

John Meacham wrote:

> > > > In Haskell, code is data too because code in the sense of
> > > > imperative actions is described by IO values.  You cannot analyse
> > > > them.
> > >
> > > And thus they are not data.
> > 
> > Huh? I'd say they are not /concrete/ data, but (abstract) data they 
> > surely are(?)
> 
> and you are certainly free to turn them into concrete data by creating
> your own data type which you then can inspect and modify and then
> "interpret".

IOW, you are free to write a Lisp interpreter in Haskell. But it's a
lot easier to do it in Lisp.

That, in a nutshell, is Lisp's key strength. It uses the same
structure for code as for data, which makes it very easy to add new
language features.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>