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

[maney at pobox.com]

Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it> wrote:
> I've found myself wishing for "set-and-test" basically in ONE
> kind of situation: when I was transcribing algorithms coded in
> languages that used that form, such as C.  In such cases, of
> course, it's trivially easy to build and use set-and-test, see:
> 
> http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/66061

AKA recipe 1.9 in the paper edition, yes.  I'm afraid I don't like it much
at all.  I'm also afraid that after all these years my brain thinks, in some
contexts, in C idioms.  Mind you, I'm pretty sure most othem were just how I
thought (or wrote pseduocode anyway) long before I encountered C, but
operator= may well be an exception.