Why aren't we all speaking LISP now?

["Jürgen A. Erhard"]

>>>>> "Steven" == Steven D Majewski <sdm7g at Virginia.EDU> writes:

    Steven> I agree that Python has no significant lisp heritage:
    Steven> although, like everyone in the world today, Guido mostly
    Steven> uses C and Python ;-), he's clearly from a N.Wirth
    Steven> procedural lineage: Pascal, Modula-*, ABC ...  ( Nobody
    Steven> from a Lisp background would have so pedantically insisted
    Steven> that list.sort() NOT return a sorted list! )

Oh, *yes*!  Don't know where I read it, but I think in Lisp circles
the non-destructive form usually has the more "obvious" name (compare
ELisp's append and nconc).

Always pains me when I have to do x = <produce list>; x.sort() instead
of x = <produce list>.sort().  (I like method concat'ing... feels just
like 'cat file|sort|uniq' ;-)

    Steven> But STILL, there's some way in which programming in Python
    Steven> and programming in Lisp "feel" similar. I'm not sure if
    Steven> there's any more to it than the dynamic and interactive
    Steven> nature and style.

For me a striking similarity is that, well, a number of people seem to
have quite a hard time grasping Python's "variables".  People coming
from a(ny) Lisp background usually don't have such problems.  They can
just see them as "bindings"...

Bye, J

-- 
Jürgen A. Erhard    juergen.erhard at gmx.net   phone: (GERMANY) 0721 27326
     MARS: http://members.tripod.com/Juergen_Erhard/mars_index.html
          Life's Better Without Braces (http://www.python.org)
             I wish I had more energy -- or less ambition.
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