Python vs. Lisp -- please explain

[Donn Cave]

Quoth Alexander Schmolck <a.schmolck at gmail.com>:
| Bruno Desthuilliers <bdesth.quelquechose at free.quelquepart.fr> writes:
...
|> bash is a scripting language for *n*x systems. javascript is a scripting
|> language for web browsers. VBScript is a scripting language for MS
|> applications.
|
| Python is also a scripting language for *n*x systems and various applications.
|  
|> A scripting languagee is a language whose main purpose is to be embbeded in an
|> application to provide the user a way of programmaticaly automate some tedious
|> tasks.
|
| A few lines ago bash was also a scripting language but I can't personally
| recall ever seeing bash embedded in some application.

UNIX!  The Bourne shell is exactly what M Desthuillers describes, for
the UNIX operating system.  Python isn't at all - not that you can't
rename a file, change working directory, execute some processes and do
all that stuff from pure Python, but there's a clear difference in focus.
Those things the shell does rather well, at anything else it's pathetic.

Of course, scripting is naturally the domain of interpreted languages,
and most scripts are trivial in size and complexity.  I guess this is
why for some people, "scripting language" just means "interpreted and
suited to writing trivial programs."  It's hard to believe they're
thinking very hard about what they're saying, but so what's new?

	Donn Cave, donn at drizzle.com