Peter Norvig here. I came to Python not because I thought it was a better/acceptable/pragmatic Lisp, but because it was better pseudocode. Several students claimed that they had a hard time mapping from the pseudocode in my AI textbook to the Lisp code that Russell and I had online. So I looked for the language that was most like our pseudocode, and found that Python was the best match. Then I had to teach myself enough Python to implement the examples from the textbook. I found that Python was very nice for certain types of small problems, and had the libraries I needed to integrate with lots of other stuff, at Google and elsewhere on the net.

I think Lisp still has an edge for larger projects and for applications where the speed of the compiled code is important. But Python has the edge (with a large number of students) when the main goal is communication, not programming per se.

In terms of programming-in-the-large, at Google and elsewhere, I think that language choice is not as important as all the other choices: if you have the right overall architecture, the right team of programmers, the right development process that allows for rapid development with continuous improvement, then many languages will work for you; if you don't have those things you're in trouble regardless of your language choice.

The whole idea behind Paypal was:

-- we'll do everything a bank does, but without all those "laws" and "accountability for mistakes" that the other banks labor under

Go on, look it up.

And they achieved that goal. Paypal largely escaped regulation as a banking entity. Banks are trustworthy with your money (to the extent that they are) not because they're magically trustworthy, but because there is a regulatory state forcing them to be. Paypal has no regulatory apparatus overseeing it. Paypal will steal your money and your only recourse is to sue them.

PayPal has made the calculation that the vast majority of their customers will not sue them. Therefore, it is profitable for Paypal to steal from these customers. This is now common knowledge. If you use Paypal today, you have no excuse for not knowing that they will steal your money.

This question sounds like it's from 2005 rather than 2010. Lisp seems to have become fashionable again now, thanks to Clojure.

I'm sure Python has very good libraries, but I would find it constraining to program in a language without proper macros.

That reminds me of a cool story, in Norvig's talk about Python...

When he finished Peter [Norvig] took questions and to my surprise called first on the rumpled old guy who had wandered in just before the talk began and eased himself into a chair just across the aisle from me and a few rows up.

This guy had wild white hair and a scraggly white beard and looked hopelessly lost as if he had gotten separated from the tour group and wandered in mostly to rest his feet and just a little to see what we were all up to. My first thought was that he would be terribly disappointed by our bizarre topic and my second thought was that he would be about the right age, Stanford is just down the road, I think he is still at Stanford -- could it be?

"Yes, John?" Peter said.

I won't pretend to remember Lisp inventor John McCarthy's exact words which is odd because there were only about ten but he simply asked if Python could gracefully manipulate Python code as data.

"No, John, it can't," said Peter and nothing more, graciously assenting to the professor's critique, and McCarthy said no more though Peter waited a moment to see if he would and in the silence a thousand words were said.

http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2008/02/ooh-ooh-my-turn-wh...

I have absolutely no doubt that the most evil words in the english language are "I'm just doing my job". It speaks of the profoundest moral cowardice, a complete abrogation of personal responsibility.

Zimbardo showed that the inevitable consequence of unchecked authority is abuse. Milgram showed that a large proportion of us will do just about anything to our fellow man because someone with a clipboard says so. Asch showed us that we will swear that black is white if we are surrounded by people who tell us so.

This isn't about emotion or politics, it is about some basic psychological facts. If you give a man a badge and a hat he will start beating people down the moment you turn your back. If you give a man the authority to do "whatever is necessary", that authority will be extended to dominate and control as far as is possible. If you tell a man "You have no other choice, you must go on", he will kill in cold blood.

All preventable deaths are unfortunate, but deaths due to terrorism are incredibly rare. Even in the most violent and chaotic places on earth, road traffic accidents dwarf the death toll due to terrorism. If we cared about the preservation of human life, we would spend the TSA's budget on eliminating malaria, tuberculosis and infant diarrhea. If we cared about saving western lives, we would spend the money on public health education and support, road traffic safety, school meals and so on.

It is clear that we're not acting rationally. In response to an extremely rare risk, we are spending countless billions on largely ineffective responses and sacrificing civil liberties on a grand scale. This isn't just about body-scanners, it's about extraordinary rendition, warrantless wiretapping, the criminalisation of photography and who the hell knows what else. Whatever argument might be made for the TSA, it is absolutely bogus to suggest that they are in any way a rational or proportional response to risk.

Every dollar that we spend on building scanners or spying on students is a dollar that we can't spend on feeding schoolkids or preventing diabetes or making roads safer. Government spending is finite and every dollar of the TSA's budget is money that could be spent much more effectively and save far more lives.

I understand that you're not referring to the post on HN that got killed but to the activity on their website.

What happened there is no different than what happens when someone posts a spreadsheet with useful stuff here. Within minutes it will get destroyed or defaced.

The 'griefers' have definitely discovered HN. I suspect that some of them are people that took rejection by YC a bit harder than they should have, and that some others are simply here because they can't see a good thing without being tempted to try to destroy it.

Anything - and I really mean anything - that you put out there on the internet needs to be designed with abuse in mind, because no matter how small it is the abusers will seek it out and will try to destroy it.

That's something that you need to be aware of as much as you need to be a coder or a designer when you plan on making a living online.

Better get used to it.