New Programming Language, Lisp syntax, but ruby semantics

I don't see the point in this as a serious production language. As a project to just have fun, of course it is a cool idea.

Lisp systems moved to generic functions for a reason - Lisp dialects for some time used a Smalltalk-based message sending model, but it just isn't as flexible.

But if the desire is to get Ruby semantics with Lisp syntax, I think the much more reasonable approach is to run a Rubyesque Lisp on Rubinius (which the lead devs have already talked of doing). At least by doing that you get the advantage of piggybacking on an advancing VM and a language that already has libraries.

Establishing a new language is hard.

Disclaimer: I haven't tried Nu yet, just read the FAQs. Nu isn't about Ruby semantics, it's about Cocoa and Objective-C semantics. It's a Lispy/scripting way of interacting with the Mac OS programming paradigm. The author is also the author of the RubyObjc bridge, and Nu was a result of his frustrations with the "impedance mismatch" between Ruby objects and code and Objective C.

My first reaction is that I am surprised to see Lisp syntax with Ruby semantics. I would have expected things to be the other way around.

Slightly off topic, but there was an interesting example on one of the documentation pages:

        % (set laws "Asimov defined #{(+ 1 1 1)} laws of Robotics")
        % (puts laws)
        Asimov defined 3 laws of Robotics

Are there any other standard ways to embed s-expressions in strings?