Chapter 3. Exploring the Syntax of Lisp Code
As you’ve learned so far, Lisp commands must be entered in a rather unorthodox way, with parentheses surrounding each command. In this chapter, we’ll explore why Lisp works this way.
To understand why any language—whether it’s a programming language or a human language—looks a certain way, we need to begin with two concepts from the field of linguistics: syntax and semantics.
Syntax and Semantics
Here is a typical sentence in the English language:
| My dog ate my homework. |
This sentence has the correct syntax for a sentence in English. The syntax of a piece of text represents the basic rules that it needs to follow to be a valid sentence. Here are some of the rules of sentences in the English language that ...
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