norvig is the only one anyone ever quotes for python vs lisp. he is beyond my knowledge, but i just cannot see what he says in this quote. python doesn’t feel like lisp at all when programming in it. the mindset is completely different.

edit: i thought this quote was much more recent. it was from around when he first joined google or even before.

That wasn't his motivation for using Python.

His motivation was much like many others -- it's the language that looks closer to pseudocode than any other.

His first attempt at doing the AI book using Java was a failure because it's verbosity and lack of features. Students found the Python version much easier to comprehend than the Lisp one.

> His first attempt at doing the AI book using Java was a failure because it's verbosity and lack of features. Students found the Python version much easier to comprehend than the Lisp one.

Sigh. Is that the nature of the beast in lisp? To me, it has always been a difficult language to sell to more "traditional" minded devs.