Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

[Kenny Tilton]

Alexander Schmolck wrote:


> language you need a tremendous amounts of coordinated community effort (brooks
> et. al nonwithstanding a handful of elite hackers just won't write all those
> libraries, documentation etc.).

No, but a few Common Lispers are working hard to solve the chicken-egg 
problem that no matter how great it is, CL needs more libraries to get 
more users to get more libraries.

Hey, does anyone know the Python history well-enough to describe the 
curve of the size of its user base? And when was the first release 
available?

> 
> Python has demonstrated that it can support such a community, CL hasn't yet
> (although it certainly has demonstrated that it can attract top programmers).

Thanks for the "yet". <g> Ability to attract top programmers--that's 
good, right? :)

> 
> Maybe the social downside of a language that is very malleable and adaptable
> is that it entails to fragmentation. If whenever a new need becomes apparent
> anyone can to kludge a quick fix together with macros, ...

Ah, but this is where CL benefits frim its 1000-page list of built-in 
functions. One is not writing macros to get functionality a computer 
language should do (by general agreement within the community), such as 
iterators or OO, and certainly not to "fix" the language" (get a new 
language!).

One is writing macros (and HOFs and a tree of classes)  either to extend 
the language into a specific application domain such as the RoboCup 
simulated soccer AI research programme, and no language should do that, 
or to explore new paradigms in programming, ideas not yet available in 
one's preferred language. At one time that was OO, now I am doing that 
with the dataflow paradigm with my Cells library.

Scheme, however, with its itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny spec /does/ end up 
fragmented because they cannot share code when each user effectively has 
their own scheme.

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