Paddy wrote: > Does Lisp have a doctest-like module as part of its standard > distribution?
No, and it never will. The wording you are using betrays cluelessness. Lisp is an ANSI standard language. Its distribution is a stack of paper. There isn't a ``standard distribution'' of Lisp any more than there is such a thing of C++. > There are advantages to > doctest being one of Pythons standard modules. There are also advantages in being able to tell idiots who have terrible language extension ideas that they can simply roll their own crap---and kindly keep it from spreading. This is generally what happens in intelligent, mature programming language communities. For instance, whenever someone comes along who thinks he has a great idea for the C programming language, the standar answer is: Wonderful! Implement the feature into a major compiler like GCC, to show that it's feasible. Gain some experience with it in some community of users, work out any wrinkles, and then come back. In the Lisp community, we can do one better than that by saying: Your feature can be easily implemented in Lisp and loaded by whoever wants to use it. So, i.e. don't bother. Lisp disarms the nutjobs who want to inflict harm on the world by fancying themselves as programming language designers. They are reduced to the same humble level as other software developers, because the best they can do is write something which is just optionally loaded like any other module, and easily altered beyond their original design or rejected entirely. Those who are not happy with the lack of worship run off an invent shitty little languages for hordes of newbies, being careful that in the designs of those languages, they don't introduce anything from Lisp which would land them in the same predicament from which they escaped. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list