Why is Python popular, while Lisp and Scheme aren't?

[Kenny Tilton]

Courageous wrote:
> You can't work in the AI community without the occassional shotgun
> marriage to Lisp.

gotcha, just wasn't sure what you meant; and that only because your 
earlier remarks about Lisp made me think you had little contact with it. 
you are one strong counter-example to my "to know lisp is to love it" 
theory.

> I suppose one aspect would be my gut feel that in saving
> the parsing load, they created a heavy symbolic load. While you basically
> learn to simply filter out all the parentheses, they are there. I prefer
> minimalism, which would be one of the reasons I use Python.

I /was/ pleased by how clean Python code looked, but as we all seem to 
be agreeing here, there is a trade-off. I realized doing Python how 
attached I was to the Lisp Way in which every form returns a value:

    (incf score (ecase (check-answer q answer)
                   (:right 1)
                   (:blank 0)
                   (:wrong -1)))

That's a trivial example which does not make the point very well, but 
there ya go. Python's thing about statements vs expressions, something I 
was used to from other languages, now seems like driving with the brake on.

>>Why do you not like Lisp? 
> 
> One example would be the plethora of redundant forms that basically all
> do the same thing.

<g> I just ignore half of them and use map*, dolist, and (rarely) dotimes.

> Another would be simple pragmatics: try hunting for
> 3rd party open source Lisp solutions on the web. Hint: ain't many.

Understood. And that is a vicious cycle: no o/s, no new Lispers, no new 
o/s. But I tend to do stuff no one else is daft enough to work on, so I 
am on my own anyway.

The only saving grace is that one open source project, UFFI, now 
standardizes (across Lisp implementations) FFI access to C libraries. I 
am using it to port my killer Lisp GUI to SDL/OpenGL, in the hope of 
creating, effectively, a "standard" CL GUI.

Maybe ready access to "C" libs will bootstrap a Lisp renaissance. 
Clearly the world is not happy with C++ and/or Java, maybe Lisp can 
attract some of the refugees.

> One of the things that I like about Lisp is the general utility of the
> s-expression itself, as well as the way that macros are given near-first-
> class utility in the environment.

Yeah, I have done some sick things with macros. Python seems to have 
most of the raw power of CL so the potential for great functionality is 
there, but macros let me take things one step further for the programmer 
  (even when it is myself) and hide/automate the plumbing. That makes it 
easier when the plumbing changes, and eliminates bugs from careless 
cloning of the plumbing.

-- 

  kenny tilton
  clinisys, inc
  ---------------------------------------------------------------
""Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five years, Doctor,
   and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it.""
                                                   Elwood P. Dowd