Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

[Karl A. Krueger]

In comp.lang.lisp Dave Benjamin <dave at 3dex.com> wrote:
> Karl A. Krueger wrote:
>> This seems like a good juncture to post my list of common myths and
>> misconceptions about popular programming languages.  Contributions are
>> welcome; flames only if they're funny.  Anyone who needs to see :) on
>> things to know they're meant in jest should stop reading now.
> 
> Haha... that's really funny... except the last one. Not that I'm a 
> Python purist (a big fan, yes, but not a purist), but I rarely complain 
> about its slowness. Java is too easy of a target for that one... =)

*laugh*  I use Python more often in my job than I use Lisp, Perl, or any
other language, except possibly the Unix shell.  It really is not among
the speedier ones for a lot of tasks.  (Neither is Java, but I have
thankfully avoided having to do any real work in Java.)  Python's
strength, for the kind of projects I work on in it, is its regularity
and the extensive standard library for things like talking to network
applications.

I moved to Python for such things from Perl, after realizing that I
really did not want to implement a database-backed application in a
language that required messy explicit dereferencing when dealing with
complex data structures.  I'd much rather deal with a list of lists of
tuples than a list of references to lists of references to tuples,
getting back things like "ARRAY<#fhqwhgads>" when I missed a dereference
character.

But you're taking my list of myths too seriously.  Not all C programs
are riddled with security bugs either.  :)

Incidentally, I regard objections to "the whitespace thing" in Python
and objections to "the parenthesis thing" in Lisp as more or less the
same.  People who raise these objections are usually just saying "Ick!
This looks so unfamiliar to me!" in the language of rationalizations.
I guess a philosopher would say that I am an emotivist about notation
criticisms.

-- 
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at example.edu>
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Email address is spamtrapped.  s/example/whoi/
"Outlook not so good." -- Magic 8-Ball Software Reviews