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

[Pascal Costanza]

Michael Hudson wrote:

> Did you know that s-exps (i.e. the paren heavy Lisp we know today) was
> intended to be a temporary syntax, and that John McCarthy intended to
> develop a more familiar syntax for Lisp?  Somehow he never did --
> maybe because it turned out to be a bad idea?

He did. But the programmers who were already using Lisp didn't accept 
the new syntax. They preferred s-exps.


Pascal

-- 
Given any rule, however ‘fundamental’ or ‘necessary’ for science, there 
are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the 
rule, but to adopt its opposite. - Paul Feyerabend