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Future of the Python Linux Distribution

Michael Hudson mwh21 at cam.ac.uk
Sun May 7 18:32:01 EDT 2000 
Glyph Lefkowitz <glyph at twistedmatrix.com> writes:

> Vetle Roeim <vetler at news.ifi.uio.no> writes:
> 
> >  - age. the other "P" language[0] has been around a little longer.. right?
> 
> I hear this tossed around a lot.  How *much* longer?

I think perl was born in 1987 and Python in 1991.  Not sure about
either of those though.
 
[biggo snippo]
> Unfortunately, one of the best features of the python community is
> that it seems to have a sane group of people in it who know multiple
> languages and will choose appropriate ones for the appropriate task.
> We need more rabid, unabashed evangelists. :-)

Why?

[little-o snippo]
> > [1]: I like Lisp, but it *does* have a PR-problem.
> 
> Lisp *IS* a PR-problem.  Lisp needs to change its name and shed some
> syntax before it's ever going to get 'mainstream' acceptance; the
> ideas in lisp are good, but too many cs students have been tortured
> with it ...

Lisp needs to *shed* some syntax?  What are you smoking?  Lisp has no
discernable syntax (and that's arguably one of it's better features).
Have you read "Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big" by Richard
P. Gabriel?  It's well worth a read:

    http://www.naggum.no/worse-is-better.html

IMHO, Lisp has not entered the mainstream because people are too
close-minded to realise that something can be both different from what
they are used to and yet a good thing.  Not that modern lisp is
perfect, but it's flaws aren't insurmountable given, say, one tenth of
the money that's gone into Java.

Cheers,
M.

-- 
  it's not that perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language
  rewards idiotic behavior in a  way that no other language or tool 
  has ever done                        -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp
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