if does not evaluate

[Jim Newton]

Jacek Generowicz wrote:
> Because
> you rarely see them used, you conclude that they are not needed. You
> you make the mistake of confusing your lack of imagination with some
> inherent quality of the language in question.

very well said!!

> 
> 
> In spite of its many qualities, Python has a number of
> shortcomings. Let's stop kidding ourselves that its shorcomings are
> features.
> 
> Python's naff support for anonymous closures is a shortcoming, not a
> feature.
> 
> 

When i was a child, i thought as a child, and understood as a child,
but when i became a man, i put childish things behind me.

When i was a child, i only programmed in BASIC.  At that time
the only type of variables were global variables, there were no
function definitions, and no recursion.  i could not imagine
that being a shortcomming, because i had never seen or used local
varaibles, and i could handle GOTO quite easily.
But i was very clever child, and did some powerful things
with BASIC even with those restrictions.

Python, being a simple and restrictive language as it is, is still
quite nice and easy to learn.  It is nice indeed, but lacks some
features that could make it a much more elagant language.

On the other hand perhaps the problem is not that Python has
shortcomings, perhaps the real problem is that LISP is lacking
lots of useful and mature UNIX and internet specific libraries.

-jim

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