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From: davidson@sdcsvax.UUCP (Greg Davidson)
Newsgroups: net.lang,net.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Using LISP for scientific programming? (gasp!)
Message-ID: <1100@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Sep-85 05:38:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.1100
Posted: Fri Sep 13 05:38:26 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 02:05:23 EDT
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Reply-To: davidson@sdcsvax.UUCP (Greg davidson)
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Organization: EECS Dept. U.C. San Diego
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Summary: LISP programmers do it any way they wanna.

Scott Anderson is correct; LISP programmers can use any algebraic input
notation they like.  Many lisps, e.g., InterLisp, have standard macros
for infix algebraic notation, but its trivial to write such.  Its an
elementary exercise in many LISP books.  Real LISP programmers only use
CPN (Cambridge prefix notation) when they want to (which is often, since
it seems natural once you're used to it).

LISP allows complete freedom in creating appropriate notations for new
datatypes and new domains.  Used sparingly, its very nice.  This is one
of the reasons LISP can be viewed as a more general purpose language
than FORTRAN/Pascal/C/etc.

_Greg Davidson			Virtual Infinity Systems, San Diego