What does Python fix?

[Adam Taylor]

> Syntax is skin deep.  I'm not part of the "Lisp's problem is Lots of Insipid
> Stupid Parentheses" crowd myself, so I never expected that Dylan's choice to
> use algebraic syntax would do it good in the end; to the contrary, it
> alienated old-time Lisp purists, who were Dylan's best hope for
> wider-than-it-got adoption.
>
> Any language even *inspired* by Lisp is doomed to eternal obscurity.  The
> Lisp'ers have been gnashing their teeth over "why?!" for decades.  It's no
> longer my job to explain it, since I abandoned Lisp years ago (I couldn't
> understand the concept of nested parentheses <wink>).

I'm curious to read a bit more about why Tim Peters (and presumably
others) think that Lisp-inspired languages (even non-prefix ones) are
doomed to eternal obscurity.  Would anyone care to comment and/or give
me some pointers to commentary on the subject?  It sounds like Tim
doesn't want to spend too much time getting into it (which is entirely
fair), but maybe others can 'channel' for him, or just point me
towards already-written opinions on the matter?

Thanks,
Adam

-----
[Tim]
>> And Dylan's subsequent meteoric rise to world domination proved
that
>> the "Lisp's problem is Lots of Insipid Stupid Parentheses" crowd
was
>> right all along <wink>.

[Steven Majewski]
> But the syntax that won in Dylan was the algebraic C-like one, NOT
> the S-expr syntax.

Yup.

> How do you explain that ?

As my sig said,

>> the-reason-lisp-excels-at-getting-ignored-isn't-skin-deep-ly y'rs -
tim

Syntax is skin deep.  I'm not part of the "Lisp's problem is Lots of
Insipid
Stupid Parentheses" crowd myself, so I never expected that Dylan's
choice to
use algebraic syntax would do it good in the end; to the contrary, it
alienated old-time Lisp purists, who were Dylan's best hope for
wider-than-it-got adoption.

Any language even *inspired* by Lisp is doomed to eternal obscurity. 
The
Lisp'ers have been gnashing their teeth over "why?!" for decades. 
It's no
longer my job to explain it, since I abandoned Lisp years ago (I
couldn't
understand the concept of nested parentheses <wink>).

leaving-lisp-angst-to-the-lispers-ly y'rs  - tim