Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: libaxiom.a

[Ralf Hemmecke]

On 03/24/2006 06:54 PM, Page, Bill wrote:
> Maybe S-expression can be defined in Aldor without imports
> from foreign lisp something like this (very roughly):
[snip]
> But then you would just be re-inventing part of Lisp inside
> Aldor and there doesn't seem to be much point since you can
> get all this from Lisp for "free".

Maybe some people are very accustomed to SExpressions, I am not. I am 
perfectly happy with Lists whose elements have a particular type, for 
example, "List(Boolean)". SExpressions are already a bit more 
complicated. And I cannot belief that they are the most natural thing 
that a mathematician can think of.

> Aldor is designed to compile to Lisp as one option.
> It is natural to continue to use this in Axiom.

I am not against LISP. If code can be re-used then it's fine.
But there was already someone on the list who said that it would not be 
so easy to build a (symbolic-algebra) object library that could be 
linked to Fortran or C (or any other language) programs.

Anyway, that Lisp discussion is quite useful for me. In Axiom I am 
sometimes missing the "Rep" of a domain.

  src/algebra/boolean.spad.pamphlet

Now I belief, that in such a case the representation is an SExpression. 
Wrong?

Ralf