Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

[Alexander Schmolck]

Pascal Costanza <costanza at web.de> writes:

> Jacek Generowicz wrote:
> 
> > Ultimately, all these Python v Lisp arguments boil down to the
> > differing philosophies:
> > Python:
> > - Keep it simple

Yep.

> > - Guido knows what's best for me

That's not quite right: s/me/python/. The thing that the lisp community
apparently has problems to grasp is that software development is largely a
team effort. In order to build an effective general purpose programming
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.).

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.

> > 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).

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

> 
> 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.

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.
 
> 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?

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? Should I send you a few hundred lines of my python
code so that you can try translating them into CL?

'as

Footnotes:

[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.