[bdr]

That's a fair point, but it's a different point than the one btilly is making. (I'm not trying to be rude, I just think btilly's theory is interesting enough to merit some defense.)

Consider the formal grammar that might be used to implement a programming language. When we use the word 'grammar' here, it's obvious that Lisp has less of it than, say, Python. It's roughly equivalent to saying that Lisp has less syntax. So, his argument is independent of any VSO/SVO distinction.

Ben is arguing that Python's additional syntax, by formalizing common structures, allows us to (in some sense) externalize the inherent complexity of a problem (i.e. out of our brain). The downside is that it introduces some rigidity into the language. Lisp makes a different tradeoff: we are forced to handle all of the complexity ourselves, but in return the language is flexible enough that we can build exactly the right abstractions for our problem. There's a kind of conservation law.

[lispm]

Lisp has a lot of syntax. Check out the Common Lisp Hyperspec and the syntax for DEFMACRO, DEFCLASS, LET, LABELS, LOOP, ... and others.

[martinced]

Yes and Clojure has a lot of syntax too. However that is still nothing compared to the syntax of other languages, like Java. The amount of syntax in a langage like Java is just maddening: even keyword (like final) have totally different meaning depending on their context.

So while I think that it's somehow wrong to always paint Lisp dialects as "having almost no syntax", I do also think that it's totally correct to say: "Lisp dialects have almost no syntax compare to mainstream language".

P.S: don't get me started on JavaScript where syntax gets inserted for you automagically, leading to bugs that can be very hard to track (re- Crockford on the error that inserting automated semi-colons in JavaScript was).

[lispm]

Have you ever looked at Common Lisp syntax?

Just the LOOP macro:

http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/m_loop...