Kenny Tilton, a Common Lisp programmer and author of the Cells library, writes about Lisp, its culture, and programming.
HN commenters recommend the blog for Lisp writing and quote its lines on Lisp's decline and its retort to complaints about parentheses.
Peter Norvig explained why he came to Python from Lisp in an HN posting a decade ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1803815
>norvig on Oct 18, 2010 | parent | favorite | on: Ask PG: Lisp vs Python (2010)
>Peter Norvig here. I came to Python not because I thought it was a better/acceptable/pragmatic Lisp, but because it was better pseudocode. Several students claimed that they had a hard time mapping from the pseudocode in my AI textbook to the Lisp code that Russell and I had online. So I looked for the language that was most like our pseudocode, and found that Python was the best match. Then I had to teach myself enough Python to implement the examples from the textbook. I found that Python was very nice for certain types of small problems, and had the libraries I needed to integrate with lots of other stuff, at Google and elsewhere on the net.
>I think Lisp still has an edge for larger projects and for applications where the speed of the compiled code is important. But Python has the edge (with a large number of students) when the main goal is communication, not programming per se.
>In terms of programming-in-the-large, at Google and elsewhere, I think that language choice is not as important as all the other choices: if you have the right overall architecture, the right team of programmers, the right development process that allows for rapid development with continuous improvement, then many languages will work for you; if you don't have those things you're in…
How often is camlp4/5 used among the typical OCaml programmer compared to how often macros are used among typical Lisp programmers?
How easy is camlp4/5 metaprogramming to read and write compared to Lisp macros?
This reminds me of Alan Perlis' admonition to "beware of the Turing tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy."[1] and of a question John McCarthy asked Peter Norvig after the latter's talk about how Python was a Lisp:
"When he finished Peter took questions and to my surprise called first on the rumpled old guy who had wandered in just before the talk began and eased himself into a chair just across the aisle from me and a few rows up.
This guy had wild white hair and a scraggly white beard and looked hopelessly lost as if he had gotten separated from the tour group and wandered in mostly to rest his feet and just a little to see what we were all up to. My first thought was that he would be terribly disappointed by our bizarre topic and my second thought was that he would be about the right age, Stanford is just down the road, I think he is still at Stanford -- could it be?
"Yes, John?" Peter said.
I won't pretend to remember Lisp inventor John McCarthy's exact words which is odd because there were only about ten but he simply asked if
Python could gracefully manipulate Python code as data.
"No, John, it can't," said Peter and nothing more, graciously assenting to the professor's critique, and McCarthy said no more though Peter…
> > I think there are a lot of people who believe they understand Python because it kindof looks like Java.
> Have you actually met anyone who's asserted that Python "kind of looks like Java"
That's unfair.
> let alone that its resemblance to Java makes it easier for them to understand?
Yes, but maybe not in the way you're expecting.
Guido himself remarked on many of their similarities back in 1997[1]; They definitely have a very similar execution model, the syntax can be directly translated almost like a cheat-sheet[2], and yeah, I think people can easily convince themselves into thinking the knowledge -- even superficial knowledge like the aesthetics of one language can help them "comprehend" the other. If you haven't observed this, I think you either haven't been programming that long or you're just trying to look at what I'm saying too narrowly in an effort to troll for a fight. And it's not just Python: Norvig even (reportedly) almost convinced himself (in this way) that Python is the same as Lisp[3], and that's just bananas!
Now, if you still don't know what I'm talking about, this next thing isn't going to make any sense at all either, but I'm hopeful you can try to understand after some reflection, and if not you, someone else who reads this with an open mind: If you are using one language to understand another, you're not actually understanding that language.
That has a very significant implication that turns out to make Array programming really hard for…
Regarding that[0]:
At ILC 2002 former Lisp giant now Python advocate Peter Norvig was for some reason allowed to give the keynote address like Martin Luther leading Easter Sunday mass at the Vatican and pitching Protestantism because in his talk Peter bravely repeated his claim that Python is a Lisp.
When he finished Peter took questions and to my surprise called first on the rumpled old guy who had wandered in just before the talk began and eased himself into a chair just across the aisle from me and a few rows up.
This guy had wild white hair and a scraggly white beard and looked hopelessly lost as if he had gotten separated from the tour group and wandered in mostly to rest his feet and just a little to see what we were all up to. My first thought was that he would be terribly disappointed by our bizarre topic and my second thought was that he would be about the right age, Stanford is just down the road, I think he is still at Stanford -- could it be?
"Yes, John?" Peter said.
I won't pretend to remember Lisp inventor John McCarthy's exact words which is odd because there were only about ten but he simply asked if Python could gracefully manipulate Python code as data.
"No, John, it can't," said Peter and nothing more, graciously assenting to the professor's critique, and McCarthy said no more though Peter waited a moment to see if he would and in the silence a thousand words were said.
0: http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2008/02/ooh-ooh-my-turn-why-lisp.html
This seems to be a good excuse to share this great story:
> At ILC 2002 former Lisp giant now Python advocate Peter Norvig was for some reason allowed to give the keynote address like Martin Luther leading Easter Sunday mass at the Vatican and pitching Protestantism because in his talk Peter bravely repeated his claim that Python is a Lisp.
> When he finished Peter took questions and to my surprise called first on the rumpled old guy who had wandered in just before the talk began and eased himself into a chair just across the aisle from me and a few rows up.
> This guy had wild white hair and a scraggly white beard and looked hopelessly lost as if he had gotten separated from the tour group and wandered in mostly to rest his feet and just a little to see what we were all up to. My first thought was that he would be terribly disappointed by our bizarre topic and my second thought was that he would be about the right age, Stanford is just down the road, I think he is still at Stanford — could it be?
> ‘Yes, John?’ Peter said.
> I won’t pretend to remember Lisp inventor John McCarthy's exact words which is odd because there were only about ten but he simply asked if Python could gracefully manipulate Python code as data.
> ‘No, John, it can’t,’ said Peter and nothing more, graciously assenting to the professor’s critique, and McCarthy said no more though Peter waited a moment to see if he would and in the silence a thousand words were said.
from…
That reminds me of a cool story, in Norvig's talk about Python...
When he finished Peter [Norvig] took questions and to my surprise called first on the rumpled old guy who had wandered in just before the talk began and eased himself into a chair just across the aisle from me and a few rows up.
This guy had wild white hair and a scraggly white beard and looked hopelessly lost as if he had gotten separated from the tour group and wandered in mostly to rest his feet and just a little to see what we were all up to. My first thought was that he would be terribly disappointed by our bizarre topic and my second thought was that he would be about the right age, Stanford is just down the road, I think he is still at Stanford -- could it be?
"Yes, John?" Peter said.
I won't pretend to remember Lisp inventor John McCarthy's exact words which is odd because there were only about ten but he simply asked if Python could gracefully manipulate Python code as data.
"No, John, it can't," said Peter and nothing more, graciously assenting to the professor's critique, and McCarthy said no more though Peter waited a moment to see if he would and in the silence a thousand words were said.
http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2008/02/ooh-ooh-my-turn-why-lisp.html