Parsing source code can be so easy…
2008 March 26
…when you use the right programming language and environment.
After three days of learning Smalltalk, I changed the code editor’s automatic code formatter (in the Squeak System Browser) by modifying some code in the AST classes. Squeak is really an awesome environment when you want to play around with your programming tools.
Compare: After four years of using Objective-C on GNUstep, I still couldn’t figure out how to improve IDE support, because parsing Objective-C is so much harder in languages like these (Java isn’t better.).
I’ve seen a couple of programming languages and programming environments. Squeak really impresses me a lot.
Gunther, meet the tip of the iceberg. Tip of the iceberg, meet Gunther.
Now you’re ready for the real stuff:
http://bc.tech.coop/blog/050911.html
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/cfcd96cc750e7b2a?hl=en
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/cfcd96cc750e7b2a?hl=en
And it’s not only for old people:
http://www.advogato.org/person/johnw/diary/12.html
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HITLER!
Sorry about the delay, must have looked like spam to my weblog system… Actually, this comment did as well. I just turned spam protection off again… :-/
It’s true: The deeper you dig into the computer science past, the more you see how much useful things seems to be forgotten…
However, I see some signs of a turnaround.
Just yesterday, I enjoyed to hear a podcast episode on Lisp on SE-Radio. (There’s also a very interesting one on Erlang.)
Oh, yes. Before I forget it; I have heard you can modify the abstract syntax tree (or whatever it is called there) of your programs at runtime in Lisp.
However, as object oriented programming seems to have quite a bit of practical relevance these days, I decided to take a look at the language all those OO guys come from. Alan Kay must have taken some inspiration in Lisp when designing Smalltalk, however I prefer to take the step-by-step approach. 
(I just used up an hour reading articles by Alan Kay and about Lisp. Looks like I really just hit the tip of the Iceberg.
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