649 karma · joined November 2, 2011
I have encountered many functionnal languages when I was student (caml-light (the ancestor of ocaml), lelisp, gofer (a cousin of haskell), miranda, graal, FP systems, yafool).
The typing may be dynamic or static. The evaluation may be strict or lazy. They may have homoiconicity or a more suggared syntax. All theses choices are valid. These languages have in common the list of fundamental properties. IMHO, this list of 4 items encompass many aspects of SICP. When I evaluate a language, this list helps me understand the qualities and limitations of a language. For example, Perl5 does not have a true garbage collector. javascript does not have tail recursion. Knowing these limitations, I will not code the same way. In Perl5, I will take care of breaking unused circular data. In javascript, I will reorganise highly recursive algorithms.
- static binding
- closures (true)
- tail recursion
- garbage collector
s-expression or typing is a matter of choice, but, IMHO, if you lack one of the four previous items, it is not really a lisp.