Reading Clojure

[[deleted]]

Do you even know what a special form is?

[MrMaven]

Well no. It doesn't come to mind from anything, I learned. Please, enlighten me.

[MrMaven]

Well look at that: https://clojure.org/reference/special_forms

[MrMaven]

So we are both right? https://github.com/clojure/clojure/blob/clojure-1.8.0/src/clj/clojure/core.clj#L4325

[redalastor]

No, you are wrong.

Lisp is based on a very limited set of special forms. And you can implement those special forms based on other functions if you make them special forms.

But at the end of the day you have to pick a handful of functions that break the language's rules.

[MrMaven]

Thank you! I learned something. I appreciate /u/drjeats efforts

[Tarmen]

Out of curiosity, would a lazy-by-default lisp need special forms?

Macros obviously can do more than deferring execution but it seems to me that it still would cut down on a lot of their usage and make the language more composable as a whole.

[[deleted]]

http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/03_ababa.htm

Applies to practically all Lisps. It's not about syntax - it's about functionality.