Python, Haskell, Lisp
Why people aren't using Haskell.
Python is growing, but not towards Lisp. As Python becomes more popular, I expect advocates of other languages will try to claim it as a descendant of theirs (call it "Alexander Graham Bell is Canadian" syndrome). Python is really a little Lisp, says Graham. A Haskell programmer could claim that Python is really a little Haskell, thanks to its support for List Comprehensions and some lazy features. An Icon programmer could claim that Python is getting to be more like Icon with the addition of lazy generators. A Smalltalk programmer would recognize metaclasses, the unit testing features and probably the new method resolution order. The warning, logging and exception handling infrastructures are probably closest to Java. In ten years, Python will probably have stolen more ideas from these languages (including Common Lisp) and they may even have stolen some back. But if you expect Python to grow towards any particular one of these, you'll be waiting a long, long time.
Programmers do not like deeply nested expressions. They like a language that encourages a style where expression results are assigned names. A statement/expression distinction encourages (and in some cases requires) that. A symbol type is not a bad idea but the marginal gain over interned strings is minimal. And the Lisp S-expression notation has been loudly and explicitly rejected over the last half century.
I like Python. I lovehate lisp. Should I learn Haskell?
posted Fri 25 Jun 2004 in /software/languages | link
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