Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

[Pascal Costanza]

A. Lloyd Flanagan wrote:

> I was a Lisp fan back when Common Lisp came out.  We went from a
> stunningly simple language that could be described in a small booklet
> to one that couldn't be adequately described in a 300-page tome.  It
> was about that time that Lisp dropped off the radar.
> 
> Now I have a language called Python, which like the original Lisp can
> be described simply but has extraordinary power.  And _it_ is what is
> attracting a new generation of programmers.

Common Lisp still has a small core, and most of the stuff of the indeed 
large spec would rather be considered standard libraries in more 
conventional languages.

Yes, it would probably have been better if Common Lisp designers would 
have made this distinction clearer, for example by defining language 
layers. That's maybe the only real mistake they have made. [1]


Pascal

[1] Somewhere in this thread someone accused "us" Lispers that we don't 
admit that Lisp has "bad" features. The reason why wo don't admit 
anything here is not because it doesn't have bad features, but because 
the flexibility of Lisp always allows us to code around these 
misdesigns. And we don't have to wait for some language designer to 
release version x.y of the language to fix a feature of the language.

The fact that Common Lisp is large is indeed the only mistake that we 
can't "code around".