merits of Lisp vs Python

[Robert Uhl]

Neil Cerutti <horpner at yahoo.com> writes:
>
>>   http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book
>
> I got stuck (last year) in that book:
>
> http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-a-portable-pathname-library.html
>
> The author didn't do Common Lisp (or me) any favors by drawing my
> attention to the pathname library.

Yeah, I think his intent was for it to be a nice little practicum to
demonstrate how to use the language--unfortunately it dealt with one of
the uglier bits of CL.  The fact that pathnames are really cool doesn't
fix the problem that they are at once overspecified and underspecified.

If the standard were revised, that'd be a good candidate right there.
This is where having a benevolent dictator for life comes in handy.

> I suppose I missed whatever the point was supposed to be in the midst
> of the mind-boggling. I meant to get back to it but haven't yet.

I pretty much skipped that chapter.  The bit where it gets mind-boggling
is where he creates ID3-tag reading classes from binary-reading
primitives and ends up with a complete ID3 library in very few lines of
code.

-- 
Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl>
I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe
what you just said.                           --William F. Buckley, Jr.