merits of Lisp vs Python

[JShrager at gmail.com]

Paul Rubin wrote:
> "Mark Tarver" <dr.mtarver at ukonline.co.uk> writes:
> > Thanks;  a quick read of your reference to Norvig's analysis
> >
> > http://norvig.com/python-lisp.html
> >
> > seems to show that Python is a cut down (no macros) version of Lisp
> > with a worse performance.  The only substantial advantage I can see is
> > that GUI, and Web libraries are standard.  This confirms my suspicion
> > that Lisp is losing out to newbies because of its
> > lack of standard support for the things many people want to do.
>
> There is (IMO) some truth to that, but the flavor of Python
> programming is not that much like Lisp any more.  Especially with
> recent Python releases (postdating that Norvig article) using iterator
> and generator objects (basically delayed evaluation streams) more
> heavily, Python is getting harder to describe in Lisp terms.  It's
> moving more in the direction of Haskell.

Sorry, I missed something here. Why do you need a release to have these
sorts of things? Can't you just expand the language via macros to
create whatever facility of this sort you need... Oh, sorry. You CAN'T
expand the language.... Too bad. I guess waiting for Guido to figure
out what Fits Your Mind is part of The Python Way.