Mark Tarver wrote: > This confirms my suspicion > that Lisp is losing out to newbies because of its > lack of standard support for the things many people want to do.
Whoa there, that's a pretty big logical jump there, don't you think? Consumer choice can never be boiled down to one thing; there are so many factors. No one knows the whole answer. I certainly don't. (If I did, I'd be courteously turning down the Nobel Prize for Economics on account of being so rich I really didn't need the extra pocket change.) I have no doubt that what you say is a contributing factor, but if I had to guess the main reason why Lisp is losing out to newbies, I'd say it's first impressions. When newbies see Python they say, "Ok, I can kind of follow that, it doesn't look too hard to learn." When they see Lisp they say, "WTF IS THAT???" It's kind of sad, in a way, that a superficiality would be so crucial. (Not that I think outward appearance is all superficial--I think humans have evolved and/or learned to regard as beautiful that which minimizes effort--but it's not the whole story and not basis for a whole judgment.) Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
