The point of the "if" example is that there is a difference between expressions and statements... yes, Python has a conditional expression (since Python 2.5, be

The point of the "if" example is that there is a difference between expressions and statements... yes, Python has a conditional expression (since Python 2.5, before it didn't), but it had to be a different syntax for that reason; the "if" expression is a completely different thing than the "if" statement (it's what's sometimes called a "ternary conditional") it just happens to use the same keywords (but without the ":"). In LISP everything is an expression, the syntax is totally uniform.