Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

[Jens Axel Søgaard]

Alex Martelli wrote:

> Essentially, Guido prefers classes (and instances thereof) to
> closures as a way to bundle state and behavior; thus he most
> emphatically does not want to add _any_ complication at all,
> when the only benefit would be to have "more than one obvious
> way to do it".
> 
> Guido's generally adamant stance for simplicity has been the
> key determinant in the evolution of Python.  

The following is taken from  "All Things Pythonic - News from Python UK"
written by Guido van Rossum April 17, 
<2003:http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=4550>

   During Simon's elaboration of an example (a type-safe printf function)
   I realized the problem with functional programming: there was a simple
   programming problem where a list had to be transformed into a
   different list. The code to do this was a complex two-level lambda
   expression if I remember it well, and despite Simon's lively
   explanation (he was literally hopping around the stage making
   intricate hand gestures to show how it worked) I failed to "get" it. I
   finally had to accept that it did the transformation without
   understanding how it did it, and this is where I had my epiphany about
   loops as a higher level of abstraction than recursion - I'm sure that
   the same problem would be easily solved by a simple loop in Python,
   and would leave no-one in the dark about what it did.

Hmm.

-- 
Jens Axel Søgaard