8. The Lisp Reader
Whatever you enter into your computer (whether interactively or via a file containing source code) has to be parsed first. The part of your Lisp system that consumes characters one by one and tries to make sense of them is called the Lisp reader. Its behavior is clearly specified (as is pretty much everything in COMMON LISP), but it also is configurable (as is pretty much everything in COMMON LISP) so that you can bend it to your will.
The ability to create domain-specific languages perfectly tailored to your problem is often praised (and rightly so) as one of the “unique selling propositions” of COMMON LISP. The fact that you can intercept the parser at such a low level and thus modify the syntax can be an integral part of ...
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