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> Not everyone has the time to learn Common Lisp. How true is this? I've learnt both CL and Python and it took me an order of magnitude less time to learn CL.

• ravi-delia 3y ago
  Setting aside the fact that naively we'd obviously expect basic python to take less time than basic CL, there's plenty of people who are already working in python. So time to learn python (remaining) is 0, compared to non-zero for CL.
  • shakow 3y ago
    > we'd obviously expect basic python to take less time than basic CL That's only obvious if you already know another language. IME, Lisp-likes are neither worse nor better than Python-likes for beginners.
  • distcs 3y ago
    > So time to learn python (remaining) is 0, compared to non-zero for CL. I don't understand your point. The time to learn Python for someone who knows Python is 0, obviously. But then the time to learn CL for someone who knows CL is also 0. What's your point? I wanted to find out whether others who have learnt both Python and CL also find CL easier to learn than Python like I did. Your answer tries to be clever but ignores my actual question!
    • magicalhippo 3y ago
      > What's your point? Perhaps that the number of people who already know Python is significantly larger than those who already know CL? For example, the intro to programming classes that physicists take (ie those that might end up writing HPC code) at the University I went to has been Python-based for well over a decade.
    • ravi-delia 3y ago
      I definitely found Python easier to learn, although now I find common lisp easier to use (Commas are terrible, and for what- infix syntax?). But in terms of why the README might say that not everyone has time to learn common lisp, my point was that it's just an obvious truism that more language bindings increases the potential userbase. To someone who already knows python, python bindings make using Petalisp that much easier. To someone who doesn't know Python, well then they can pick up Python or CL at their leisure.
  • peatmoss 3y ago
    For everyone who has only ever seen a Python, plus a language or two that Python has shared a common ancestor with, Python is self-evidently the platonic ideal of an easy language. Though I had exposure to Python before various lisps, I see most lisps as simpler to learn than Python. But I also see the Python ecosystem as easier to StackOverflow your way to something that does the task at hand. But this is just, like, my opinion. I've also taught and watched teaching of roughly the same data science curriculum to total novice Python programmers and total novice R programmers (R being very lispy). The R classes pretty much universally run laps around the Python classes. Again, just anecdata, because the Python classes tended to be attended by hard sciences people (e.g. physics) while the R classes tended to be attended by social scientists. From that experience, I have a hypothesis that either 1) R is easier for beginners than Python, 2) the R ecosystem is better for quantitative research science, or 3) social scientists are smarter than physicists.