Python vs. Lisp -- please explain

[Alexander Schmolck]

"Fredrik Lundh" <fredrik at pythonware.com> writes:

> Alexander Schmolck wrote:
> 
> > You might want to argue about whether scriping language is a meaningful and
> > useful concept, but it's really hard to see how you could talk about "scripting
> > languages" without including python.
> 
> define "scripting language".

Pretty much any definition that isn't practically useless would do. I'd
personally opt for something like:

 A language that doesn't make all common simple tasks difficult and painful.

If that sounds too wishy-washy, note that I specifically question whether
scripting language is a useful and meaningful concept to start with -- I just
find it silly to take issue with calling python a scripting language but not
with the term scripting language itself (especially given that even the python
tutorial talks about python scripts and that almost anyone who uses the term
would include python).
 
> the only even remotely formal definition I've ever seen is "language with
> designed to script an existing application, with limited support for handling
> its own state". 

> Early Tcl and JavaScript are scripting languages, Python is not.

Right. Which shows that by this definition scripting language is not a
meaningful and useful concept. No one will understand you correctly when you
refer to "scripting language" and mean only something like the above -- and
unless you spend a lot of your time talking about early tcl and early
javascript I doubt you'd need a word for it, either.

'as