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

[Kenny Tilton]

Alexander Schmolck wrote:
> Another related problem is that Common Lisp doesn't scale well. It is a big
> and complex language and that's it. While this might be a big productivity win
> for an experienced developer who can leverage a large collection of well
> thought out standard functions, it makes it a bad choice for many other
> scenarios (if you knew neight CL nor python, would you rather have your
> application scripted in python or CL?). 

Puzzled. "scale well" to me means "what happens when you try to use it 
for a big project" or possibly a small project with big runtime resource 
requirements. CL is great at either, precisely because it can do a lot.

In your final query, it sounds like you mean can it scale beyond the 
expert few. If so, I think CL is very approachable (easy to get going 
productively very quickly) and then one just keeps on learning more and 
more cool stuff because it is so rich.

-- 

  kenny tilton
  clinisys, inc
  ---------------------------------------------------------------
""Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five years, Doctor,
   and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it.""
                                                   Elwood P. Dowd