gherkin

Yes, the arithmetic primitives don't support variadic arguments. You can see how + works - and that it only deals with the first two arguments - here: https://github.com/alandipert/gherkin/blob/278354246aebf14b8.... A pull request fixing this would be welcome. In the meantime, for variadic addition, one can do: (load-file "core.gk") (reduce + 0 '(1 2 3)) ;=> 6

This is fascinating. I assumed it was yet another ridiculous attempt to build something in an environment completely unsuited for it, but it seems that they are serious. But they're also sufficiently aware of the craziness of the project that the first thing they do is explain just why the heck they're doing it: https://github.com/alandipert/gherkin/wiki/Why-gherkin%3F The short version is that bash is the closest thing to being universally available on every UNIXoid system no matter what, and so by writing stuff in bash, you make it so that it can run everywhere. But because bash sucks to program in, this is a minimalist interpreter for a sane language. You can then write programs in that language, and they will only depend on bash and on this interpreter, and the interpreter is simple enough not to need any sort of complex installation.

ReadMe ==> https://github.com/alandipert/gherkin/blob/master/README.md

Bash has many features and for me has been useful to know because it's almost everywhere, but it was never designed to be what it has become. I'm working on escaping it forever with gherkin, a Lisp I wrote in Bash 4. gherkin is still in its early days, but if you're interested in such a thing see https://github.com/alandipert/gherkin or join us in #gherkin on freenode.