What can you do in LISP that you can't do in Python

[James_Althoff at i2.com]

Dave LeBlanc wrote:
>In article <mailman.990563553.4477.python-list at python.org>,
>James_Althoff at i2.com says...
>>
><snip>
>> o We (the Smalltalk-80 group at Xerox PARC) designed the syntax and
>> semantics of Smalltalk-80 from the very beginning to allow "nameless,
>> in-place" code blocks to serve a *very* prominent role in the language
--
>> namely, to implement *all* control structures.  In fact, we designed the
>> syntax and semantics of Smalltalk-80 specifically so as to make it
>> unnecessary to define *any* builtin control structure into the language
>> proper (aside from method invocation). (The goal was to design the
language
>> such that essentially every construct -- including every control
structure
>> -- could be considered to be a "parameterized message sent to an
object).
>> Python (like most languages), on the other hand, was designed to have
>> special syntax and semantics to support each of its builtin control
>> structures.  In this sense, lambdas do not serve the same fundamental
role
>> in Python that blocks do in Smalltalk.
>>
>>
>> Jim
>
>I think having smalltalk-style block closures in Python would be great!
>The only problem I can see, given the pythonic aversion to left/right
>(brackets, carets, braces), is how it would look.
>
>Dave LeBlanc

I agree!

Jim