shaunlebron/history-of-lisp-parens

a history of Lisp's most notorious artifact, parentheses

105 best points · 102 comments · 2 Hacker News posts · 593 GitHub stars · View on GitHub

#1 Repo of the Day on Hacker News.

From the README

> NOTE : references appreciated! # History of Lisp Parentheses A historical look at the many attempts to improve Lisp's most notorious artifact—_parentheses_. I'd like to find out how people tolerated parens back in the golden days of Lisp. I have a feeling we might've forgotten some things that would be useful today, or might influence some new ideas. Roughly, we cover the history in four parts: 1. Why Parens? 1. Editors 1. Alternative Syntaxes 1. Visual Decorations Archived References See the following archive of historical papers and manuals referenced in the sections above:

Hacker News discussions

• History of editors for Lisp (105 points, 28 comments, by tosh, 2018-08-12)
• History of Lisp Parentheses (2019) (80 points, 74 comments, by sph, 2023-02-01)

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