What does Python fix?

[Mark McEahern]

Andrew Kuchling wrote:
> I don't know; I think most programmers are simply far too conservative
> and too intolerant of superficial syntactical features.  Witness how
> much flak Python, an otherwise fairly conventional languages, takes
> for its one unconventional feature, indentation.  With this attitude,
> Lisp with its parenthesis-heavy syntax doesn't stand a chance, no
> matter how good or bad the language itself is.

Yeah, but in the case of indentation, it only takes a little while to go
from hating it to not seeing how one could live without it.  (That was the
case with me.  I hated indentation at first and now I love it.)

As for Lisp's parentheses, I've never used Lisp, but when I look at
examples, I have to control my overwhelming desire to vomit when I see that
profusion of parentheses.  It seems like a bad nightmare brought to life as
a programming language--or perhaps it's some secret BDSM initiatory rite?

Cheers,

// mark