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Why is Python popular, while Lisp and Scheme aren't?

maney at pobox.com maney at pobox.com
Sun Dec 1 17:06:03 EST 2002 
Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters <mertz at gnosis.cx> wrote:
> If only I could -believe- that all the parens make things easier, then I
> would be able to understand how much easier they make things :-).

Oh, I *can* believe that the parenthesis are a feature.  At least after
recent discussions, and in the abstract.  Whether that belief will be
enough to get me past the annoyance of *dealing* with them (or, to
answer what seems to be the canonical form of the Lispers' answer to
such complaints, past the annoyance of learning to love Emacs) is quite
another question.

I'm trying to disengage from this fascinating/infuriating thread, so
I'll summarize the partial answer to the OP's question that I'm taking
away from it one last [I hope] time:

Every language has a speed bump - some amount of new and/or different
stuff that you just have to work through before it all starts to make
sense.  If the new language is very similar to one(s) already known,
the bump may be so small you hardly notice it; other times it may
involve learning a whole new style (OO or functional are common
examples) and it may be considerable.  Lisp is, if not unique, still
unusual in that it has a second speed bump, because its syntax is
extremely awkward to deal with until you've acclimated to a suitable
IDE or syntax-aware editor.  This conceptually unnecessary additional
barrier to entry must surely help hold down the rate at which new
converts make it through to become happy Lisp users.
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