Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

[Alex Martelli]

On Monday 13 October 2003 06:13 am, Mark Wilson wrote:
   ...
> >> 3. Python's syntax is one of the worst features of the language and
> >
> > Ha.
>
> How cogent.

What other kind of response were you expecting to such a deliberately
inflammatory statement, claiming as "established" a key point on which
consensus is _clearly_ lacking?


> >> should not be adopted by Lisp and Scheme.
> >
> > Obviously not, as it would not fit in with all the rest of their
> > features.
>
> That idea was the point of the post that started this thread/

Yes, and it was a most obviously wrong-headed idea from the word go.
The whole thread should have died unborn.  But, of course, by making
inflammatory statements as if they were hallowed and universally
accepted truths -- just as you're doing above in point [3] -- and with
some creative cross-posting, the OP easily managed to ignite a couple
of weeks' worth of useless flames.  Whether that was due to actual
or carefully faked cluelessness, just like in your case, is moot.


> >> responses to Joe Marshall's analysis that successfully refute his
> >> analysis.
> >
> > I guess I haven't been posting ENOUGH on this thread -- I don't
> > recall the "is establishes" analysis in question, just the usual FUD
> > about "copy and paste errors" and other variants on whitespace-
> > eating nanoviruses -- I tore a few to shreds, but it was almost
> > incidental to all the rest of the volume.
>
> Check on the responses from Joe Marshall (who also has an email account
> called prunesquallor, or something like that. The only person to engage
> his arguments in this thread was the original poster. I would find it
> enlightening to read a cogent response to his analysis, although I
> doubt that one can in fact be maintained.

Google Advanced Groups Search lists 19 posts by Joe Marshall with
the subject "python syntax in lisp and scheme", and 15 more by
prunesquallor on comp.lang.python -- do you _really_ think it reasonable
to ask for others to research those 34 posts (or more, if some of the
arguments were not posted in either of these exact ways), and divine which
ones out of them made those oh-so-incredible points you currently deem
to be unanswerable, when you can't be bothered to identify them more
precisely?  My bet would be that they're in one or more of the usual
groups incessantly repeated over the years, such as the above-mentioned
"copy and paste issues" and "mysterious disappearance of whitespace"
(due to mutant whitespace-eating nanoviruses); and that they ignore the 
general issues of trade-offs within the design space of programming 
languages, just like equally clueless attacks agains lisp's s-expressions 
almost always do.  Clueless or posing-as-such fans of either, either 
sincerely convinced or acting as if they were convinced that a single syntax 
style, a single language, CAN ever be the optimal design point over the
whole gamut of objectives that languages may wish to optimize for, are
always ignoring such realities (e.g. claiming that s-expressions are "a
must" for powerful macros, conveniently ignoring Dylan which shows they're
at most a _convenience_ therefor; or sweeping under the carpet the very
different issues connected to languages meant to be spoken rather than
written, in which case whitespace and case-sensitivity become _obvious_
liabilities; etc, etc).


> >> 4. The productivity of the prolific posters must have precipitously
> >> phaded.
> >
> > True in my case -- the amount of FUD and insults posted and
> > demanding response being so high -- as seen above, even so I
> > may not have noticed all of the "is establishes" alleged ``analyses''
> > which sufficiently clueless readers (and you seem to be successfully
> > posing as one) may think "irrefutable" unless one tediously, over
> > and over, cuts them to confetti-size shreds and throws back
> > into their proponents' faces.
>
> The above is really uncalled for and beneath a person of your purported
> stature. It makes me wonder if I was wrong to think highly of you.

If your "thinking highly" included thinking that I'd let that [numerous 
expletives deleted] assertion of yours right at the start of your point 3 
pass unchallenged, you most definitely have another think coming.

> Confronting Lisp may have had a deleterious effect on your thinking. As

Judging on claims made by many lisp advocates on this thread, I fully
understand your fears that having anything to do with lisp may have
deleterious effects on one's thinking.  Even the most urbane of lispers,
for example, has at one point attacked the carefully presented conclusions 
I was explaining about my long-ago experiences by claiming that the
opinions I had formed thereby *were not opinions* (!!!) -- whatever he
meant by that (and he didn't mean they were FACTS rather than just
OPINIONS -- he was trying to *diss* my opinions by claiming they
were not opinions, "just fears").  And that's the GOOD guy...!-)

> to me being clueless, that may be true, although I have my doubts.

Please read my words as carefully as I write them, thanks.  They're
accurately quoted above: I say you SEEM to be successfully POSING
as one.  Whether somebody might possibly BE so clueless as to
state the first sentence in your point 3 in all sincerity, at this point of
the thread, I have more serious doubts -- I guess I shouldn't be setting
any arbitrary limits to possible human follies -- but a perhaps more
reasonable working hypothesis is one of a deliberate bid to rekindle
flamewars that might otherwise be about to die thanks to general
exhaustion of contenders.

> Clear cogent arguments advancing your views might provide me with a
> clue.

I kid myself that most of the many thousands of lines I've posted to
this thread were parts of reasonably clear and cogent arguments.  How
many more thousands of lines "might provide you with a clue", I don't
know, but there ARE limits to my patience and availability.


> > I guess I'm just about ready to drop
> > off this interminable thread, except presumably for whatever
> > further dismantling of insults, FUD and disinformation I just
> > can't resist.
>
> Please resist.

Please don't post sentences such as the leading one of your point
3, *UNLESS* you're doing your best to keep the flamewar alive.  Isn't
that utterly and totally obvious?


> >> 5. Use Ruby, be happy.
> >
> > I earnestly hope you'll start a new cross-thread between c.l.lisp and
> > c.l.ruby about first-class functions, macros, case sensitivity, regular
> > expressions as inherently embedded in the language, and whatever
> > else can most enflame them -- please leave c.l.ruby out of it, tx.
>
> I have nothing against Lisp or Scheme (I'm learning both). I have
> nothing against Ruby either (Ruby is my favorite language and the first
> one I started learning). It has the advantage of not considering other
> programming languages a waste of time. I have never heard a Ruby
> programmer complain about others "wasting" their efforts on other
> programming languages. I have heard such talk from Python people. So
> what is it with the Python people?

I have never seen a Python person claim that Python is the ONLY programming
language that should be considered for any possible programming endeavour
whatsoever (neither have I seen Ruby people claiming that).  I *HAVE* rather
often seen lispers making exactly such an outrageous claim, including many of
them on this thread.  Therefore, your targeting such an accusation of "one
true wayism" against Pythonistas, rather than against lispers, is ridiculous 
to the point of making it just too difficult for me to accept that you may be 
in good faith in making it: in other words, your "successful posing" above 
hypothesized appears now to have developed a crack in its facade, and you
show up as deliberately trying to pick fights -- be it against me personally,
against all Pythonistas, or whatever.

To dot the i's and cross the t's: Pythonistas' general consensus is that one 
programming language isn't best for ALL conceivable tasks whatsoever.  If
so, then one may still consistently think that one particular person is likely 
to be wasting their time for a particular combination of task and language --
e.g., if somebody was desperately striving to learn RPG-2 in order to
program an interacive website, I might well opine that they're wasting their
time and energy, and perhaps let him know of my opinion -- that there are
far better ways for him to invest his time and energy, learning languages
that are more accessible and pragmatically suited for the task.  However, it
is not consistent with a "horses for courses" attitude, to think that _ALL_
time spent learning or using other languages must be wasted: and indeed,
you'll often find Pythonistas recommending other languages to querants,
either for purposes of learning or when the querant claims they just cannot
live with some Python trait (e.g. dynamic typing) and thus demands that it
be changed.

OTOH, a language which has a substantial number of proponents claiming
it's the best for EVERY task, will consistently have those proponents holding
the opinion that dabbling in any other language must be a waste of time.
That attitude is typically associated with large all-encompassing languages,
such as common lisp or c++, rather than with small nimble languages which
to a higher or lesser degree consider language simplicity a plus.


Alex