merits of Lisp vs Python

[Paul Rubin]

"Wolfram Fenske" <int2k at gmx.net> writes:
> with a couple of macros.  I. e. if Common Lisp didn't have CLOS, its
> object system, I could write my own as a library and it would be just
> as powerful and just as easy to use as the system Common Lisp already
> provides.  Stuff like this is impossible in other languages.

If Common Lisp didn't have lexically scoped variables (most Lisp
dialects before Scheme didn't have them) then it would be very
difficult to add that with macros.

Do you seriously think lexical scoping is the last word in language
features and that there's now nothing left in other languages that
can't straightforwardly be done in CL?  Hint:
call-with-current-continuation (also known as call/cc).

I just don't see a non-messy way to simulate Python generators in CL.
They can be done in Scheme using call/cc though.

Take a look sometime at Hughes' paper on "Why Functional Programming
Matters":

   http://www.math.chalmers.se/~rjmh/Papers/whyfp.html

The examples in it are pretty easy to do in Python or Scheme, but I
think not so easy in CL.