merits of Lisp vs Python

[Paul Rubin]

Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVE.THIS.cybersource.com.au> writes:
> Even if you're stuck on some god-forsaken Windows PC with just Notepad,
> you can still read Python code.
> 
> Now, *writing* Python code with Notepad isn't as easy, but it is still
> doable. How about Lisp code?

I've generally used IDLE when editing Python under Windows.  It comes
with the Python distro after all.

Yes, very large systems have been developed with much worse editing
facilities than Notepad.  Specifically, through the whole 1960's and
early 1970's, display terminals were a rarity and people usually
edited code (whether in Lisp or another language) on printing
terminals (usually noisy Teletypes).  It gets worse than that.  In the
very early days (the Lisp terms "car" and "cdr" are derived from names
of registers of the ancient IBM 709 mainframes) they used punch card
systems instead of printing terminals.  It gets worse than THAT.  One
of the important historical Lisp applications was James R. Slagle's
SAINT symbolic integration program on the IBM 704.  Written on punched
cards.  Except Slagle sadly became blind while writing this program,
so he did a fair amount of the development by feeling the holes in the
cards with his fingers to read them.  I don't think anyone writes
Python that way ;-).

> The day has not yet arrived that nobody ever needs to edit code in a
> plain, vanilla text editor.

It's not impossible or terribly difficult to write Lisp that way, it's
just unpleasant, once you've gotten used to doing it with editors that
automatically indent and balance parens.