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

Erik Max Francis max at alcyone.com
Sun Nov 10 14:40:10 EST 2002


Jens Axel Søgaard wrote:

> I can't remember a link - but if you want to Google for them,
> they were calles M-expressions.
> 
> I can't remember if the M-expressions were implementes or whether
> they are to be found in McCarthy's articles from that perioed.

Hmm, m-expressions are the writing variant I mentioned in another part
of this thread, where unambiguous parentheses are simply removed.  At
least, that's my exposure the the term as used by Chaitin in _The
Unknowable_.  His use of m-expressions over s-expressions, in fact, were
one of the motivations for me to stop reading.

This makes Lisp similar to, say, Logo, where parentheses are optional
and the arity of the procedures being invokes is what determines the
grouping.  (Parentheses can be used to force non-standard grouping,
however.)  I think it makes sense for Logo, for which every operation
has a well-defined number of inputs, but don't think it makes nearly as
much sense for Lisp itself, where there is much more variation.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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