Why aren't we all speaking LISP now?

[Gareth McCaughan]

Grant Edwards wrote:

>>> Why do people think Python is so Lisp-like? I just don't get
...
> Here is where Scheme must be different.  There are no
> high-level data structures other than lists.

Scheme has vectors (1-d arrays), too. Buy yes: this is one of
many respects in which Scheme is a much less practical language
than Common Lisp.

> >* A large standard library, though Lisp's seems to focus more on data
> >  structures than on OS or network interfaces.
> 
> The Scheme "standard libarary" isn't quite so large or standard.

Indeed. Another of those many respects...

> >I don't think tail recursion, or even frequent use of recursion, is
> >necessarily a hallmark of Lisp; you could do everything in iterative
> >style if you preferred.
> 
> I suppose so.  Maybe I'm the odd man out when I write Scheme: I
> use recursion to process lists.

That's common in Scheme, because

  - one of the motivating ideas in Scheme is to define
    iteration in terms of recursion as much as possible;

  - Scheme is widely used for teaching students about recursion.

-- 
Gareth McCaughan  Gareth.McCaughan at pobox.com
.sig under construc