Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

[Dave Benjamin]

In article <kx8hb.3998$dn6.3349 at newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>, Andrew Dalke wrote:
> Daniel P. M. Silva:
>> Do you know where I can find those studies?  I'm very intested in their
>> findings :)
> 
> Sure.  The research was done for ABC.  ABC's home page is
> http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/abc/
>     ABC is an interactive programming language and environment for
>     personal computing, originally intended as a good replacement for
>     BASIC. It was designed by first doing a task analysis of the
>     programming task.

Interestingly enough:

"The language is strongly-typed, but without declarations. Types are
 determined from context."
                - http://ftp.cwi.nl/abc/abc.intro

Sounds like type inference to me.

Also:

"There is no GOTO statement in ABC, and expressions do not have
side-effects."
                - http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/abc/teaching.html

Hints both at the statement/expression dichotomy of Python and the issue
that side-effects make it difficult to reason about a program, one of the
most important assertions made by functional proponents (IMHO).

Dave

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