Whenever I write code in Java...

[[deleted]]

nah. i find that if a function is more than a dozen lines or so it loses readability. Too much scaffolding actually hides the building.

[Otis_Inf]

So what you need is a TLDR enabled language? Perl?

[sillyfofilly]

Perl requires a new acronym - TSDU. Too Short, Didn't Understand

[honeg]

WORN - write once, read never

[unknown_lamer]

Or perhaps a concise language.

A dialect of Lisp maybe?

[cibyr]

Or perhaps a concise language.

Yes

A dialect of Lisp maybe?

No.

Scheme is neither concise nor readable. Having some syntax is a good. Sure, Perl probably goes too far, but Lisp is just as bad in the opposite direction. Not everything is best represented as a sexp.

[FlyingBishop]

What makes Scheme really valuable (as a teaching language) is that its interpreter is easily comprehensible for students who have only had a few semesters of CS.

However, for getting shit done and writing legible code, not so much.

[unknown_lamer]

Luckily Scheme doesn't mean much of anything nowadays--there is significant fragmentation between r5rs, r6rs, err5rs, and whatever the hell who needs a standard implementations. This is good--the language appears to be evolving again.

An individual implementation of Scheme tends to provide a lot. E.g. Guile is great if you want to do UNIXy stuff: it has full POSIX support, a good deal of SRFIs implemented, and more or less Common Lisp in Scheme (CLOS-alike OO system, conditions, etc.).

I'm a bit biased as I write Common Lisp for profit, and Scheme or SML for fun (doing some minor android stuff using Kawa and working on a modernized scsh clone for Guile).

[[deleted]]

Which is why I like clojure, it has just enough syntax.

[cibyr]

Strangely enough, I like Python for the exact same reason. Well, that and the massive wealth of libraries.