merits of Lisp vs Python

Paul Rubin http
Sun Dec 10 10:21:22 EST 2006


Ken Tilton <kentilton at gmail.com> writes:
> Have you read On Lisp by Paul Graham? It is on-line. Just the preface
> will do, I think, maybe also Chapter One where he raves on macros. Do
> you think he is mistaken? Confused? Lying? Mutant?

I remember Paul Graham's piece about macros that made him sound like
someone who went nuts with them, as is certainly possible to do.  In
my experience, good coders write for clarity and that includes in
their use of Lisp macros.  All in all Lisp's macro system is something
like the C preprocessor.  Yes, you can obfuscate things horribly with
it, but you can also use it to make things clearer, and that's what
good programmers do.



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