merits of Lisp vs Python

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Mathias Panzenboeck a écrit :
> Bruno Desthuilliers wrote:
> 
>>Mathias Panzenboeck a écrit :
>>
>>>Rob Thorpe wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Mathias Panzenboeck wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Mark Tarver wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>How do you compare Python to Lisp?  What specific advantages do you
>>>>>>think that one has over the other?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Note I'm not a Python person and I have no axes to grind here. 
>>>>>>This is
>>>>>>just a question for my general education.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Mark
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>I do not know much about Lisp. What I know is:
>>>>>Python is a imperative, object oriented dynamic language with duck
>>>>>typing,
>>>>
>>>>Yes, but Python also supports the functional style to some extent.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I currently visit a course about functional programming at the
>>>university of technology vienna:
>>>python implements only a small subset of things needed to be called a
>>>functional language (list
>>>comprehension).
>>
>>Python has functions as first-class objects (you can pass functions as
>>arguments to functions, return functions from functions, and bind
>>functions to identifiers), and that's the only thing you need to use a
>>functional approach.
> 
> 
> You mean like function pointers in C and C++? 

Absolutely not. Python's functions are normal Python objects, instances 
of the (builtin) class 'function'. FWIW, any object implementing the 
__call__ method can behave as a function.

Python functions can take functions as arguments, and return functions - 
this is how 'decorators' work.

> I think this should be possible in assembler, too.
> I thought functional languages have to be declarative?

For what definition of 'declarative' ?

> The boost C++ library has even lambdas!

So does Python - even if in a restricted way.