Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

[Pascal Costanza]

Alexander Schmolck wrote:

> 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).
> 
> 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, maybe several
> semi-private half-baked solutions are developed whereas in python the fact
> that a community effort is needed to change and adapt/enhance the whole
> language and the fact that someone is in charge ensures coherence (while
> preventing "committee designs"[1]).
> 
> Or maybe there is no such downside and it's just the AI winter or some other
> historical accident. Who knows.

Yes, I think we really can't know yet.

The thing I find amazing about languages like Python is that they have 
managed to get high-level language constructs accepted by the "masses" 
that have been considered too complicated, too inefficient, too whatever 
not so long ago. Obviously their designers have found a way to better 
communicate the value of such language constructs.

Of course, macros are possibly above a certain level of complexity and 
therefore can never reach the masses.

>>>Lisp:
>>>- Provide as much power to the programmer as possible, out of the box
> 
> 
> This is just completely ridiculous. CL out of the box -- in stark contrast to
> python -- is just about useless for almost any real world task (certainly as
> far as the free implementations are concerned and the only fully-featured,
> cross-platform Cl I'm aware of is Allegro CL, which is uhm, pricey).

Maybe we should differentiate between expressive power and 
"infrastructure power".

>>>- I know what's best for me, and I want a language that allows me to
>>>  invest effort in making difficult things easy for me
> 
> 
> Great for you (BTW what happened to that JVM in lisp of yours -- should only
> have taken a couple of weeks/months or so to write, right?).

Right. It runs the first tests. They have executed after about two 
months of development with about 8 hours per week of me working on the code.

However, I don't have the time to finish it at the moment. My priorities 
are different.

> But whether CL
> makes difficult things easy or not, it sure makes many easy things difficult.

Or so it seems.

>>I second that. To me, this is indeed the important difference, and the most
>>important reason why I love Lisp.
> 
> 
> Sure, just because CL is a worse general purpose language than python (in the
> sense of best fit for most programmers for most tasks (representatively
> sampled) -- I'm not sure python has much competition in this regard, BTW)
> doesn't mean that CL can't be a more rewarding programing language for some
> people.
> 
> After all most programers and most programming tasks encountered are not
> terribly exciting.

Are you talking about current trendy tasks, or also about tasks that 
might become important in the future?

> But claims that CL is more productive (even for good programmers who actually
> know both CL and python) in *general*, as you've implied in another post, are
> pretty, uhm, unconvincing.

I don't think I have said anything along these lines.

>>Most languages are of the first kind: some language designer thinks he knows
>>better what's best for the users of his language than those users themselves.
>>Such people use language design as a mask of authoritarian power. 
>>See for example http://www.iol.ie/~pcassidy/ARC/guru.html
> 
> 
> To me this reads as "You're bunch of brainless puppets of a crypto-fascist".
> Now WHAT ON EARTH motivates you to *cross-post* inflammatory crap like this?

Well, I haven't cross-posted inflammatory crap like this. This is only 
your interpretation of what I have posted.

> Did it occur to you that people maybe use python not so much because they are
> retards but because it's vastly more effective than CL at the tasks they
> currently need to perform?

Yes, I take that for granted.

> [1] I decided to cut this footnote as I intend this to be my last post on the
>     matter. I'll send it to you in private email, if you really want to know.

Yes, please.


Pascal