From: Random832 <random832@fastmail.com>
To: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Cc: emacs-tangents@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Python vs Lisp (followups to -tangents)
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 22:31:49 +0000 (UTC) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <n4cugl$sb5$1@ger.gmane.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 86oadyjgew.fsf@gnu.org
On 2015-12-10, Sam Steingold <sds@gnu.org> wrote:
> This is false.
> Nested lists are certainly printed readably:
What I meant by "not structure-preserving" is that the output is
the same, ((1 2) (1 2)), for these lists:
(let ((x '((1 2) (1 2)))) (eq (car x) (cadr x))) ==> nil
(let* ((a '(1 2)) (x `(,a ,a))) (eq (car x) (cadr x))) ==> t
(let ((x (read "((1 2) (1 2))"))) (eq (car x) (cadr x))) ==> nil
(Or for that matter, let*
((b '(2)) (x (list (cons 1 b) (cons 1 b))))...)
> True, but irrelevant.
>An important feature is missing: repr is not defined for classes
> automatically.
Sure it is. It's just defined to the same kind of useless value
that Lisp has for buffers and subroutines.
>> Python's 'eval'/'exec' normally evaluates code directly from a
>> string, skipping the need for 'read' entirely.
>
> A string is too unstructured.
>
>> However, if desired, the 'ast' module provides a rich framework for
>> working with expression trees - the only difference is that they're
>> built from class-based objects instead of just being a list of
>> lists/symbols/literals.
>
> These class-based objects cannot be printed readably (IIUC).
It's unfortunate that this is not their repr output, but the
ast.dump function provides this:
>>> ast.dump(ast.parse("1 + 1"))
'Module(body=[Expr(value=BinOp(left=Num(n=1), op=Add(), right=Num(n=1)))])'
>>> eval(ast.dump(ast.parse("1 + 1")), ast.__dict__)
<_ast.Module object at 0x7fcd79b24908>
> The point Richard is making is that Python lacks macros, i.e., you
> cannot easily write code which writes code.
> You have to either operate at the level of strings (which is hard to get
> right) or at the level of AST (which is even harder).
I don't see how operating at the level of AST is harder than
operating at the level of lists (backquote operates above the
level of lists; it automatically searches the code you give it
for placeholders to substitute values in. It probably wouldn't
be hard to write an equivalent in Python.)
> Even more succinctly, in Lisp data and code are the same: lists of
> lists, symbols, strings &c.
> In Python, data is (mostly) strings and code is AST.
I guess I don't see how being a little rough around the edges or
not working exactly the same way is the same thing as missing
the essential features entirely.
And this really isn't a valid objection to the claim being
discussed, which is that Python is similar to a hypothetical
M-expression lisp.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2015-12-10 22:31 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 87+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2015-11-28 23:29 First draft of the Emacs website Nicolas Petton
2015-11-28 23:51 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2015-11-29 0:03 ` Daniel Pimentel
2015-11-29 1:02 ` Xue Fuqiao
2015-11-29 1:26 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-11-29 2:19 ` Alex Dunn
2015-11-29 3:31 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2015-11-29 5:42 ` Random832
2015-11-29 8:15 ` David Caldwell
2015-11-29 14:25 ` Dmitry Gutov
2015-11-30 17:49 ` Emacs for Mac OS X bundle (was: First draft of the Emacs website) John Wiegley
2015-11-30 20:02 ` Emacs for Mac OS X bundle David Caldwell
2015-12-01 0:15 ` Xue Fuqiao
2015-12-01 1:40 ` David Caldwell
2015-11-30 0:02 ` First draft of the Emacs website Xue Fuqiao
2015-11-29 8:06 ` Przemysław Wojnowski
2015-11-29 10:27 ` Zack Piper
2015-11-29 12:36 ` Rasmus
2015-11-29 12:58 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-11-29 14:00 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-11-29 10:15 ` David Engster
2015-11-29 12:56 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-11-29 15:17 ` Dmitry Gutov
2015-11-29 19:38 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-11-29 22:01 ` Dmitry Gutov
2015-11-29 22:11 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-11-29 16:21 ` Christopher Allan Webber
2015-11-29 19:39 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-11-29 21:45 ` Artur Malabarba
2015-11-29 22:11 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-11-30 0:04 ` Artur Malabarba
2015-11-30 1:29 ` Alex Dunn
2015-11-30 9:43 ` Artur Malabarba
2015-11-30 10:33 ` Dani Moncayo
2015-11-30 15:22 ` Drew Adams
2015-11-30 16:06 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-11-30 16:16 ` Yuri Khan
2015-11-30 16:23 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-12-01 14:37 ` Richard Stallman
2015-12-01 14:56 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-11-30 19:48 ` Milan Zamazal
2015-12-02 16:45 ` Drew Adams
2015-12-02 17:22 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-12-02 16:36 ` Random832
2015-12-02 17:12 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-12-02 18:07 ` Yuri Khan
2015-12-02 18:26 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-12-02 18:29 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-12-02 18:30 ` Yuri Khan
2015-12-02 23:47 ` Xue Fuqiao
2015-12-04 3:57 ` Random832
2015-12-04 5:17 ` License of the Emacs website (was: Re: First draft of the Emacs website) Chad Brown
2015-12-05 0:19 ` First draft of the Emacs website Richard Stallman
2015-12-03 13:58 ` Clément Pit--Claudel
2015-12-03 22:17 ` John Yates
2015-12-03 22:30 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-12-03 22:57 ` Drew Adams
2015-12-03 23:26 ` John Yates
2015-12-04 0:58 ` Drew Adams
2015-12-08 13:05 ` Valentijn
2015-12-08 15:09 ` Drew Adams
2015-12-08 15:21 ` Spencer Boucher
2015-12-08 16:08 ` David Kastrup
2015-12-08 20:52 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-12-08 21:51 ` Drew Adams
2015-12-08 21:58 ` Drew Adams
2015-12-09 21:00 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-12-10 5:28 ` Richard Stallman
2015-12-10 9:10 ` David Kastrup
2015-12-10 5:27 ` Richard Stallman
2015-12-10 16:13 ` Python vs Lisp (followups to -tangents) Random832
2015-12-10 18:40 ` Sam Steingold
2015-12-10 22:31 ` Random832 [this message]
2015-12-16 15:57 ` Sam Steingold
2015-12-16 17:56 ` Christopher Allan Webber
2015-12-09 6:06 ` First draft of the Emacs website Richard Stallman
2015-12-04 6:06 ` David Kastrup
2015-12-04 9:37 ` Eli Zaretskii
2015-12-04 9:42 ` David Kastrup
2015-12-04 10:11 ` Eli Zaretskii
2015-12-04 10:42 ` Nicolas Petton
2015-12-04 10:44 ` David Kastrup
2015-12-04 11:03 ` Eli Zaretskii
2015-12-04 22:26 ` Paul Eggert
2015-12-04 22:30 ` David Kastrup
2015-12-04 8:42 ` Eli Zaretskii
2015-12-03 23:59 ` Clément Pit--Claudel
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