merits of Lisp vs Python

[Robert Uhl]

"mystilleef" <mystilleef at gmail.com> writes:
>
> Any sizable Lisp applications will make extensive use of macros. Emacs
> and magic ( the web framework) come to mind.

$ cat `find /usr/share/emacs/ -name '*.el' -print ` | grep defmacro | wc -l
1393
$ cat `find /usr/share/emacs/ -name '*.el' -print ` | grep defun | wc -l
29244

So it looks like there's one macro for every twenty-one functions.  That
doesn't seem too extensive, nor too scarce.

> My experience has shown that nobody but the person who writes the DSL
> extension can maintain their code.

Emacs has been used for almost thirty years now, by tens (hundreds?) of
thousands of programmers, and extended by almost every one of them.

> The benefits of extending a language in a domain specific manner are
> exaggerated.

Certainly they seem useful to the authors of such packages as BBDB and
emacs-w3m.

-- 
Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl>
As a client for MS Exchange, MS Outlook is quite good.  As an Internet
e-mail client [e.g, POP3/IMAP], it's roughly equivalent to strapping a
few pounds of plastique to your gonads and painting a day-glo orange
bulls-eye on your knickers.                -- Morely Dotes in nan-ae