Peter, you imply that Python is better for, or more like, pseudo-code, but why is it better? In my opinion, it is better for most people because they were taught syntaxes more like that of Python than that of Lisp. An important factor in easy-of-understanding is to be similar to something you are already familiar with. To the extent that this is the reason, it's not implicit in Lisp vs. Python, but rather more a question of which style of syntax is better-known.
> Peter, you imply that Python is better for, or more like, pseudo-code, but why is it better?
Well from what he writes, he seems to say Python looks much closer to their actual pseudo-code, and it's therefore easier for students to translate pseudocode to Python than to Lisp.
> In my opinion, it is better for most people because they were taught syntaxes
Such as english. One of the original goals of Python (inherited from ABC[0]) was to be a good teaching language. I'd expect that when Peter talks about his students, he's mostly talking about students with low-to-no knowledge in programming. Those who are already knowledgeable probably don't have a hard time adapting.
When I took an AI class at my university with AI: A Modern Approach (the book was good, if a little difficult to understand at times), we had a couple projects that we had to write in lisp.
First project:
Problem Solving Agent for Traveling Salesman Problem. 1. Depth First Search (function argument- DFS)
2. Iterative Depth First Search (function argument- IDFS)
3. A* - Heuristic: Path Cost Incurred (function argument- PATH)
4. A* - Heuristic: Minimum Spanning Tree heuristic (function argument- MST)
5. (Extra Credit 25 points ) Create and implement a heuristic equal to or better than MST
Second project:
In this project we implement a decision tree induction algorithm in Lisp.
I had played around with lisp before this point and found it fascinating. I approached these projects with excitement. But even with 8 years of serious programming experience, I could not for the life of me solve these problems in lisp. My problems included:
1. Knowing exactly what methods I wanted to call and use and either
a. Not being able to find them in any reference I found online, or
b. Finding out that they don't exist, and you have to write them yourself, or
c. Finding them and shaking my head at how ridiculously they were named.
2. Not being able to read the code I had just written.
3. Not being able to debug.
4. Finding that manipulating common data structures like hash tables is a total chore.
Eventually I gave up. I had spent about two hours trying to implement the project I had already solved in my head into common lisp and was making little or no progress. So I fired up another vim terminal, solved the project in Python in about 30 minutes, including debugging, and then manually translated the code into lisp.
When project 2 rolled around, I decided to give it another go, but I quickly became frustrated again. Maybe my mind just isn't able to grok lisp? Maybe I'm just not smart enough?
All I'm claiming is that I am an example of a student who was already very knowledgeable about programming and completely unable to adapt to lisp.
