A critic of Guido's blog on Python's lambda

[Ken Tilton]

Alex Martelli wrote:
> Ken Tilton <kentilton at gmail.com> wrote:
>    ...
> 
>>Why? (symbol-name '|(|) -> "("  (No, the "s are not part of the name!)
>>
>>If you want to argue about that, I will have to bring up the Lisp 
>>readtable. Or did you forget that, too?
> 
> 
> Mea culpa -- it wasn't in the Lisp(s) I used 25+ years ago, nor in
> Scheme; I've never used Common Lisp in anger, and obviously "just
> dabbling" gives one no good feel for how *INSANELY COMPLICATED* (or, if
> you prefer, "insanely extensible") it truly is.
> 
> I personally think these gyrations...

Please. You are the only one gyrating. I was joking with both |(| and 
the fact that its length is one, no matter what our eyes tell us.

And I hope to god you were joking with the objection that a Lisper could 
not name a variable "(". You would not say something that daft just to 
win a Usenet debate, would you? Omigod...I think you did! I mean, look 
at the way you were jumping up and down and shouting and accusing Bill 
and me of not understanding English and... well, you are an uber tech 
geek, what did i expect? All is forgiven. But...

It is vastly more disappointing that an alleged tech genius would sniff 
at the chance to take undeserved credit for PyCells, something probably 
better than a similar project on which Adobe (your superiors at 
software, right?) has bet the ranch. This is the Grail, dude, Brooks's 
long lost Silver Bullet. And you want to pass?????

C'mon, Alex, I just want you as co-mentor for your star quality. Of 
course you won't have to do a thing, just identify for me a True Python 
Geek and she and I will take it from there.

Here's the link in case you lost it:

     http://www.lispnyc.org/wiki.clp?page=PyCells

:)

peace, kenny

ps. flaming aside, PyCells really would be amazingly good for Python. 
And so Google. (Now your job is on the line. <g>) k

-- 
Cells: http://common-lisp.net/project/cells/

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