Python's Lisp heritage

[Andrew Dalke]

Siegfried Gonzi:
>What Python --from my pragmatic point of view-- has in common with Lisp is
>the nice feature that you can put in your return  list different objects,
>
>e.g. [[1,2,3],["334.233,"Ein bloeder Oesterreicher",777],array]

This is also present in Perl and Tcl, and also I believe in
Smalltalk, Mathematica, and even APL.

>And it is possible in Python (sorry I know only the idle) to build your
>functions in the command-line (every Common Lisp environment provides you
>this).

I don't know what it's called in Common Lisp, but in Python I think
you are refering to the interactive mode.  The command-line is what's
used to start Python from, say, the unix shell.

>I often have heard that CLOS (Common Lisp Object System) lets you
>change your class objects on the fly, I do not have any experience with
that
>and I am not sure how this relates to Python (my Python object oriented
>programming experience is zero).

You can modify Python classes and instances as well, though I don't
know how similar it is to CLOS.  I do know there are differences between
how Python does it and how Smalltalk does it.  (Eg, reload() doesn't
update old versions of newly redefined classes.)

                    Andrew
                    dalke at dalkescientific.com