merits of Lisp vs Python

[Bill Atkins]

greg <greg at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz> writes:

> Ken Tilton wrote:
>
>> McCarthy: "Is code also data in Python?"
>> Norvig: "No."
>
> I don't think that was the right answer. He should have
> said "Yes", and then shown McCarthy eval() and exec.
>
> Code isn't quite as *convenient* to work with as data
> in Python as it is in Lisp, but that doesn't mean it
> can't be done.

This sounds like the Turing argument, because that convenience makes
all the difference.  Raw, unparsed text is nothing like trees of
symbols and objects when it comes to transforming or analyzing code.