merits of Lisp vs Python

[Kaz Kylheku]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> I'd love to say it has been fun, but it has been more frustrating than
> enjoyable. I don't mind an honest disagreement between people who

Honest disagreement requires parties who are reasonably informed, and
who are willing not to form opinions about things that they have no
experience with.

> So now I have an even better understanding for why Lispers have a reputation for being difficult and
> arrogant.

Whereas, for instance, lecturing a Lisp newsgroup (of all places) in
the following manner isn't arrogant, right?

``Turing Complete. Don't you Lisp developers know anything about
computer science? ''

If that had been intended to be funny, you should have made that more
clear by choosing, say, lambda calculus as the subject.

> But I also gained a little more insight into why Lispers love their
> language. I've learnt that well-written Lisp code isn't as hard to read as
> I remembered, so I'd just like to withdraw a comment I made early in the
> piece.

You /think/ you learned that, but in reality you only read some
/opinions/ that Lisp isn't as hard to read as was maintained by your
previously held opinions. Second-hand opinions are only little better
than spontaneous opinions.  It's, at best, a slightly favorable trade.

> I no longer believe that Lisp is especially strange compared to natural languages.

Natural languages are far less completely understood than any
programming language. Only your own, and perhaps some others in nearby
branches of the language tree do not appear strange to you.