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

[Michael Hudson]

nandrats at mail.mdanderson.org writes:

> I thought that this is a python list where every kind of language
> related question can be posed. But this thread in my opinion is
> getting out of range.

It's hard to stop people posting to a thread they're interested in.

This thread is pretty on topic compared to some -- we haven't had any
discussions about esperanto or trans-finite cardinals or what sort of
water pasta is best cooked in.  python-list tends to go in for wildly
off-topic threads.  I don't mind, because they're usually pretty
interesting.

> Besides, I really think that this is a very friendly list, but right now, I'm
> getting more emails about this thread than really relevant mails for a newbie!

This however suggests you need a better way of reading this list.
Having all of the traffic for this list slam into one's inbox would be
pretty bad, I imagine.

The best way to read it, IMHO, is as a newsgroup.  If your
organization or ISP has a news server, just point your news client at
it and ask for comp.lang.python.  Same content as the list, but news
readers usually have convenient interfaces for "I don't want to see
this thread" and such.  If you don't have easy access to a news
server, but do have internet access, you can point your news reader at
"news.gmane.org" and ask for (I think) gmane.comp.python.general.

If your stuck getting it as email, you want to persuade something in
the email delivery chain to divert messages with the header:

List-Id: General discussion list for the Python programming language <python-list.python.org>

to a special python-list mailbox.  From headers, you seem to be using
Lotus Notes (could be wrong), in which case you have my pity, and I
can't help you with this bit.

Hope that helped!

Cheers,
M.

-- 
  First of all, email me your AOL password as a security measure. You
  may find that won't be able to connect to the 'net for a while. This
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  and shake it to reboot it.                     -- Darren Tucker, asr