Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

[Hans Nowak]

Grzegorz Chrupa?a wrote:

> As an example of how subjective this can be, most of the features you
> mention as too complex for Python to support are in fact standard in Scheme
> (true lexical scope, implicit return, no expression/statement distinction)
> and yet Scheme is widely regarded as one of the simplest programming
> languages out there, more so than Python.

Scheme, as a language, is arguably simpler than Python... it takes a few core 
concepts and rigorously applies them everywhere.  This makes the Scheme 
language definition simpler than Python's.  However, whether *programming in 
Scheme* is simpler than *programming in Python* is a different issue 
altogether.  To do everyday things, should you really have to grok recursion, 
deeply nested expressions, anonymous functions, complex list structures, or 
environments?  Of course, Python has all this as well (more or less), but they 
usually don't show up in Python 101.

-- 
Hans (hans at zephyrfalcon.org)
http://zephyrfalcon.org/