How explain why Python is easier/nicer than Lisp which has a simpler grammar/syntax?

[Chris Angelico]

On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 1:16 AM Christian Seberino <cseberino at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Python is my favorite language and the easiest to use in my opinion.
>
> Lisp has a far simpler grammar and syntax.   A beginner I think could
> learn Lisp much faster than Python.
>
> Therefore, it seems like Lisp *should* be easier to work with and more readable.  I don't feel like it is easier to use but I can't see *why* that is.
>
> My best guess.....
>
>       Lisp pros: simpler syntax
>       Lisp cons: prefix notation, lots more parentheses
>
>       My hypothesis is that the cons slightly outweigh the pros of Lisp
>            which is why Python is easier to work with and is more readable in the end?

Ook has an even simpler syntax. It has just three syntactic elements:
"Ook." "Ook?" "Ook!"

The purpose of code is to represent a programmer's intentions in a way
that can be understood by other programmers, and by the
interpreter/compiler. Simpler syntax allows a simpler parser, but it
doesn't create expressiveness.

If your definition is based entirely on how quickly a beginner would
be able to learn the details of how a language is run, then that's
missing a lot of the point of readability. The point of learning a
language isn't that you can take a piece of pre-existing code and
figure out what it'll do, step by step; the point is to be able to
encode your intentions in that language, and to read the code and
understand the other programmer's intentions. That's why we have
comments - the language would be (slightly) simpler without them, but
we would lose an important aspect of that programmer-to-programmer
communication.

Ook is one of the least expressive and most simple languages there is.
Python is far more expressive, far more detailed... and far FAR more
useful.

Lisp is elegant and simple, but it's also less expressive than Python
is. That's why Python is (often) easier to work with.

ChrisA