merits of Lisp vs Python

[Pascal Costanza]

Paul Rubin wrote:
> jayessay <nospam at foo.com> writes:
>>> It's simply that newer language designs by definition have more of an
>>> experience base to build on than older ones, if the designers care to
>>> make use of it.
>> Agreed.  Indeed, that was the underlying guiding principle in putting
>> together CL.  *ML being older than CL didn't have any more opportunity
>> in this respect.
> 
> You're forgetting that CL tried to be more or less backwards
> compatible with its predecessors, at least compatible enough that
> large systems in Maclisp, Interlisp, Zetalisp, etc. could be ported
> without too much pain.  Therefore, CL could not erase too many
> mistakes from the past.  Scheme went somewhat further than CL at
> cleaning things up, and Scheme's aficionados think CL is a clumsy old
> kludge as a result.  But it's still a Lisp dialect.  The ML's, for
> their part, were able to start from scratch.

It's funny: Language designers have been spending a lot of effort over 
the decades on designing language constructs that help to improve the 
opportunities to reuse of software libraries. Yet every five years, or 
so, new languages and technologies come up that require everyone to 
start from scratch. Starting from scratch is even being applauded, due 
to some mythical belief that "this time, we are going to get it all right."

Something seems wrong here...


Pascal

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