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Comment by jjnoakes | Hacker News Reader

Some people find s-expressions hard to read because they are almost too uniform. Having different brackets and braces mean different things can aid those folks.

There are languages that allow user-defined syntax and aren't only parenthesis/s-expressions, so arguing one requires the other is a false dichotomy.

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Often the information that different brackets and braces would represented in other languages becomes the shape of the s-expressions. I find that easier to parse than most[1] languages. With rainbow-delimiters[2] (example[3]), parsing nested parens becomes far easier.

[1] Ruby is a rare exception.

[2] https://github.com/Fanael/rainbow-delimiters

[3] http://i.imgur.com/xS4y6rT.png

In Racket and other Schemes parens and square brackets are interchangeable. The Racket style guide suggests to use square brackets in let- or cond-like expression, or generally any expression with a list of lists of fixed length that are not supposed to be evaluated. The expression you posted would become like this:

    (do ([i 1 (+ i 1)])
        ((> i 100))
      (display
        (cond [(= 0 (modulo i 15)) "FizzBuzz"]
              [(= 0 (modulo i 3))  "Fizz"]
              [(= 0 (modulo i 5))  "Buzz"]
              [else                i]))
      (newline))

I personally think this helps a lot with the problem of parsing s-expressions visually.

Also: It is rare to use `do`.

    #lang racket
    (require math)

    (for ([i 100])
      (displayln
       (cond [(divides? 15 i) "FizzBuzz"]
             [(divides?  3 i) "Fizz"]
             [(divides?  5 i) "Buzz"]
             [else            i])))

Did i claim that one requires the other?

Some people also find it very hard to memorize bazillion syntax rules.

Comparing understanding scheme is equivalent to "divination by tarot cards" is a bit ridiculous, don't you think?

> Did i claim that one requires the other?

Sure sounded like it:

"compared to bazillion new keywords that can't be used by user programs"

> Comparing understanding scheme is equivalent to "divination by tarot cards" is a bit ridiculous, don't you think?

I never said otherwise.

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