Expressions of Change
Jun 02, 2020 — Tags: Musings
In which we explore the possible meaning of “Homoiconic” by ignoring all pre-existing definitions and providing one of our own.
In an earlier article, I concluded that you probably shouldn’t use the word “homoiconic”: starting with the original definition of the word, I noted that this this definition is problematic for a number of reasons, and that the best we can say is that there is a degree to which a language is homoiconic: languages that have a smaller conceptual distance between their program text and machine operation are more homoiconic and vice versa.
That article also explored some of the plethora of competing, often mutually exclusive definitions in active use – a fact that should come as a warning anyone who’s intention is to clearly communicate their ideas.
