Python so far

[No such thing]

Courageous <jkraska1 at san.rr.com> writes:

> Python may be too slow for some tasks, but in the area
> of programmer productivity, very little beats it, and
> arguably the environments that do (e.g., lisp) have too
> many other negatives associated with them.

Care to explain?

[I hope the following won't turn into flamewar; I would like to have a
 better idea on what I will gain (or lose) when I decide on one language
 or another.]

I think Common Lisp already has some good solutions to many issues
confronting Python now:

- Optional type declaration;
- Optimizing compiler (taking advantage of the type declaration);
- Powerful macro (superseding the need for preprocessor);
- Pseudo case insensitivity (!) (contrary to wide misconception, 
  Common Lisp is actually case sensitive; it is the lisp reader (lexical
  analyser + parser?) that by default, convert everything to uppercase.
  Like anything else in Lisp, this behavior is customizable within the
  langauge.  (Hm, might be a good solution to the recent dilemma.));
- etc.

Even the syntax (parentheses) became an asset after I learnt to use
Emacs effectively.

I am wondering which path is shorter: an optimizing compiler for Python, or
interoperability for lisp?

- hyz