merits of Lisp vs Python

[Paul Rubin]

jayessay <nospam at foo.com> writes:
> > It's simply that newer language designs by definition have more of an
> > experience base to build on than older ones, if the designers care to
> > make use of it.
>
> Agreed.  Indeed, that was the underlying guiding principle in putting
> together CL.  *ML being older than CL didn't have any more opportunity
> in this respect.

You're forgetting that CL tried to be more or less backwards
compatible with its predecessors, at least compatible enough that
large systems in Maclisp, Interlisp, Zetalisp, etc. could be ported
without too much pain.  Therefore, CL could not erase too many
mistakes from the past.  Scheme went somewhat further than CL at
cleaning things up, and Scheme's aficionados think CL is a clumsy old
kludge as a result.  But it's still a Lisp dialect.  The ML's, for
their part, were able to start from scratch.