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

[Fernando Pereira]

On 11/10/02 3:25 PM, in article
mailman.1036959914.4995.python-list at python.org, "David Garamond"
<davegaramond at icqmail.com> wrote:
> my only point is and
> has been that people don't like the syntax.
Most people don't like math either, or quantum cosmology. So? Science is not
a popularity contest, except on the pages of the general press.
> syntax matters, so all the
> other things that lisp has can't attract them to embrace and stay with
> lisp. and that's a shame, but that's the way it is.
This whole discussion, based as it is on untested assumptions, reminds one
of the fallacy of "survival is determined by good design" prevalent in
popular misinterpretations of evolutionary theory as well as in much
misguided moral philosophy. One could as well argue that the failure of Lisp
is that its inventors spent too much time fighting each other over trivia
rather than focusing on creating great libraries and applications to make it
valuable to others. There was a window of opportunity from the late 70s to
the late 80s, but the Lisp community bet on Lisp machines, dialect variants,
and narrow application niches (AI in particular). In addition, all the best
Lisp implementations were either proprietary or tied to exotic platforms.
Much effort was wasted by all, allowing other languages to claim a territory
that could have been naturally Lisp's.

In summary, Lisp's problem is that it had no BDFL.

-- F