Why is Python popular, while Lisp and Scheme aren't?

[Jeremy Hylton]

Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it> wrote in message news:<i%Kz9.15914$Bs5.565672 at news1.tin.it>...

> Hmmm, on a slightly different tack, this DOES help me articulate one
> source of my slight reluctance to get really deep into Ruby: Ruby
> gives the programmer just a little bit MORE dynamicity/flexibility/
> power than Python, by messing with the fundamentals of built-ins and
> passing "unevaluated code blocks" to methods (that's how you do
> iterators in Ruby, while Python's iterators are utterly different) --
> although that's still not a full-fledged macro system, I may be
> subconsciously worrying that the little extra power IS just enough
> to get into "newbie cravings" territory.

I asked Matz about this at LL2 on Saturday.  I asked if he could think
of examples where he wanted to change the language syntax.  He said
the blocks were powerful enough that they could accomodate new
features without syntax change.

The question came up in the context of a recurring debate over the
utility of macros.  I noted that as a Python developer, I'd love to
have access to macros to experiment with new syntax without having to
munge the grammar and compiler.

Jeremy