Python's Lisp heritage

[Roy Smith]

"John Roth" <johnroth at ameritech.net> wrote:
> One of the things that is most unusual about Python is
> it's rejection of bracketing where it isn't needed:
> using indentation for block structure is one example.
> This is diametrically opposed to Lisp.

The one nice thing about lisp syntax is that it's absurdly easy to parse.  
Given that the machines it originally ran on had less memory and processing 
power than your typical kitchen appliance today, not wasting anything on 
parsing was important.

What's truly mind boggling is that those same machines parsed fortran.