Re: Postscript in 4tH

From	Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth, comp.lang.postscript, alt.folklore.computers, comp.lang.lisp
Subject	Re: Postscript in 4tH
Date	2026-09-09 03:01 -0700
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<87se3ikal8.fsf@nightsong.com> (permalink)
References	(1 earlier) <871pb7l36f.fsf@nightsong.com> <nnd$47db062e$781955bb@280ad1e4adf8c230> <875x0gib1k.fsf@debian> <117prfv$gq7e$3@dont-email.me> <87o6e7cifh.fsf@debian>

Cross-posted to 4 groups.

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Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> writes:
> At the time that PostScript was designed, most Lisps did not have
> macros; they still had fexprs.... PostScript first shipped in 01982,

1982 was right in Lisp's heyday and I expect the major implementations
all had macros (Maclisp, Lisp Machine Lisp and its descendants, Nil,
Spicelisp).  Scheme was around and didn't have macros but I don't think
it had fexprs either.

> Given that PostScript clearly hits 8 out of 9 of these criteria, and
> arguably all 9, while no then-popular language other than Lisp came
> anywhere close, I think it’s pretty clear that it mostly belongs to the
> Lisp family.

I think that list is pretty bogus.  The main characteristic of Lisp imho
is lambda calculus and lambda binding.  In order to even have a local
variable in a PostScript function, you have to literally push a
dictionary on the evaluation stack and invoke BEGIN, then later END to
pop the dictionary stack, like Forth wordlists.

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Re: Postscript in 4tH Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-09-08 22:38 -0300
  Re: Postscript in 4tH Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-09 03:05 +0000
    XML in Pythong (was: Re: Postscript in 4tH) Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-09-09 15:00 +0800
    Re: Postscript in 4tH Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-09-10 01:06 -0300
      Re: Postscript in 4tH Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-10 07:38 +0000
      Re: Postscript in 4tH Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-09-10 07:39 -0700
  Re: Postscript in 4tH Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-09-09 15:15 +0800
    Re: Postscript in 4tH Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-09-10 01:11 -0300
  Re: Postscript in 4tH anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2026-09-09 07:35 +0000
    Re: Postscript in 4tH Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-09 08:10 +0000
      Re: Postscript in 4tH Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2026-09-10 17:58 +0200
  Re: Postscript in 4tH Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-09-09 03:01 -0700

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