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

[Chris Angelico]

On Sat, Aug 8, 2020 at 1:38 AM Python <python at bladeshadow.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Aug 07, 2020 at 04:23:42PM +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 11:11 AM Python <python at bladeshadow.org> wrote:
> > > Pretty straightforward.  Now try yourself to write the iterative
> > > version.
> >
> > It might look slightly better to a mathematician, but it's so
> > abysmally inefficient (unless you add extra layers of indirection)
> > that it's not really a good example.
>
> Yes, I did say more or less that... but efficiency was not the point.
> Understanding was the point.
>
> > The iterative version seeds the algorithm and lets it run:
>
> Sure Chris, I fully expected YOU to get this on the first try, but the
> average programmer tends not to.  My team uses it as an interview
> question fairly often, and I'd venture a guess that upward of 80% of
> candidates get it wrong on their first try.   The recursive version
> is typically much easier to understand intuitively, not just for
> mathemeticians, because it more or less restates in simple,
> straightforward code what the natural language definition of the
> Fibonacci sequence is, rather efficiently (not efficiency of
> execution, efficiency of converting natural language to code).
>

My point is that doing Fibonacci recursively is arguably more elegant
while being materially worse at performance, but there are other
examples that are fundamentally recursive, are just as elegant (merge
sort: "fracture the array in half, sort each half, then merge them"),
and can't be done better iteratively. So IMO Fibonacci is a flawed
demonstration of what is a very valid point ("recursion can be really
elegant"), and other examples would serve the purpose better.

TBH most people won't get the recursive version right the first time
either. And that's not a problem. I actually didn't get the iterative
version perfect right away (had an off-by-one on the loop counter),
and tested it before posting. Every student I've worked with has had
the same thing - something doesn't work the first time, even with the
most brilliant students - so they test, they debug, and then they
refine their code. I'm not some sort of coding deity that gets things
right the first time; the medium of email lets me hide the
testing/debugging step and just post working code :)

ChrisA