Re: what is the problem?

[Scott McKay <address@hidden>]

At 05:03 PM 12/18/01, Paul Prescod wrote:
>Christopher Barber wrote:
> >
> > > Modula-3, which was based in part on Lisp.
> >
> > This is news to me.  I thought Modula-3 was an outgrowth of of the Pascal
> > family.  It sure doesn't look very Lisplike.
>
>I would like further explanation of all of this "Python is like Lisp".
>They are both dynamically typed. But so are Perl, Smalltalk and PHP.
>Perhaps Lisp has so influenced the world that everything looks like it
>today. But I always associated a recursive, functional style of
>programming with Lisp whereas most naive Python programmers use more of
>a procedural style until and unless they learn more about Python's OO
>and functional features.


I think you have a misimpression that Lispers always use recursion
and functional styles.  I think there is a natural fit to using a more
functional style in Lisp because all "forms" return values (that is, there
is no distinction between a statement and an expression).  So a lot
of Lisp programmers use a more functional style because it is natural,
and indeed clearer and more concise, to use a functional style.