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

[Michael Hudson]

anton at vredegoor.doge.nl (Anton Vredegoor) writes:

> On 8 Nov 2002 04:54:01 -0800, oleg_inconnu at myrealbox.com (Oleg) wrote:
> 
> >I don't know much about Python, but I looked at this comparison
> >between Python and Common Lisp (
> >http://www.norvig.com/python-lisp.html ), and I couldn't help but
> >wonder why Python is popular, while Common Lisp and Scheme aren't?
> 
> A computer program has to determine what a certain input means before
> it can produce output.
> 
> In the years when Lisp was becoming popular the first task -
> interpreting input - was considered to be hard and the other task -
> producing output - was considered to be easy. People *expected* source
> code to be difficult to read for humans. 

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?

> Nowadays some people think that interpreting a given message is
> trivial compared to the problem of producing the right output. If the
> computer has to decide that we must have meant something else in order
> to be able to produce the right output: So be it.
> 
> As a consequence we can use a more human like language to communicate
> with the computer.

With all the ambiguities that make human languages such fun?  Shudder.

Have you used AppleScript?

Cheers,
M.

-- 
  Darned confusing, unless you have that magic ingredient coffee, of
  which I can pay you Tuesday for a couple pounds of extra-special
  grind today.                           -- John Mitchell, 11 Jan 1999