ANN: YAPDL

[Tim Daneliuk]

TundraWare Inc. Press Announcement
For Immediate Release
---------------------

Announcing: Yet Another Python Derived Language (YAPDL)
---------------------------------------------------------

Since it has been almost a whole week since someone has proposed
another "Python Like" language, TundraWare Inc. is pleased to do
its part in announcing its very serious intention to consider the
possibility of perhaps, maybe, someday, creating and releasing
"Yet Another Python Derived Language" (YAPDL).

Major YAPDL Benefits Include:

- Very similar to Python in most ways, but with a strong emphasis
on obscure academic purist notions that no one really cares about.

- A vehicle for promoting interminable length discussions about
said obscure notions on Internet newsgroups and IRC chatrooms.

- A means of chasing Microsoft's .NET flavor-of-the-moment
thereby further increasing the complexity of an already
out-of-control development environment.

- An opportunity for third-parties to spend inordinate amounts
of time and effort to retrofit the Python library onto YAPDL.

- A springboard for the further dead-horse-beatings of:

a) Microsoft The Evil Empire
b) What I miss about LISP/Haskel/Oberon/Assembler
c) Why we need explicit block delimiters

- A mechanism for further diluting the mindshare and resources
available to improve, use, and promote, Python itself.


TundraWare Inc.'s President, Tim Daneliuk, is quoted as saying,

Contrary to some of the rumblings we've already heard, the
YAPDL project was not commissioned or funded by Sun as a
stealth JAVA promotion activity. We at TundraWare have taken
this upon ourselves to insure that the Python community remains
fractionalized, confusing, and intimidating to our corporate
clients, thereby improving our chances of getting more billable
hours.

For more information, please contact the TundraWare Inc.
press liaison:

U.R. Kidding-Me
(e-mail address removed)






Old-And-Grumpy-ly Yours,

 

[Peter Hansen]

TundraWare Inc. Press Announcement
For Immediate Release

I think you should reconsider the name. It could easily
be confused with a popular project called YAML, and could
also be pronounced "Ya-piddle" which would conflict with
the Python project PIDDLE, a graphics module, which is
also on Sourceforge.

Sheesh... you would think these guys would have learned
a lesson from others. I'm almost positive there was another
thread like this just this week, but my notoriously bad
memory is failing me and I don't know about things like
Google which would help me supplement it...

-Peter

 

[Jeremy Jones]

TundraWare Inc. Press Announcement
For Immediate Release
---------------------

Announcing: Yet Another Python Derived Language (YAPDL)
---------------------------------------------------------

Since it has been almost a whole week since someone has proposed
another "Python Like" language, TundraWare Inc. is pleased to do
its part in announcing its very serious intention to consider the
possibility of perhaps, maybe, someday, creating and releasing
"Yet Another Python Derived Language" (YAPDL).

Major YAPDL Benefits Include:

You forgot to mention:
- overcoming Python's HUGE, nearly insurmountable performance
difficulties by optimizing it to the point that anything smaller than a
3.0GHZ processor will burst into flames upon attempting to execute it.
We estimate that 99% of our time will be devoted to optimizing while 1%
will be dedicated to implementing YAPDL. It may not work well, but at
least it'll be fast!

 

[Alex Martelli]

...
Ha ha, very funny, but I think it's quite misplaced criticism.

As a Python stalwart, I'm _enthused_ to see Python-derived languages
emerging. That's _exactly_ the right thing to do if you sort of like
Python BUT would want to see points A, B and C changed: make your OWN
language, derived from Python but with all the changes you wish. As
opposed to posting here whining, clamoring, arguing or lobbying for
changes to Python, or criticizing Python's design choices, with is
exactly the _wrong_ thing to do and an utter waste of everybody's time.

I salute with happiness the emergence of several PDL's. To me, it
signifies growing awareness that Python is no experimental state-of-the
art sandbox-language in which to try out your own language design idea,
be they innovative ones, or old and tired ones. If you want a new
experimental language that's sort like Python, spin off your own --
DON'T post here criticizing Python or trying to change it. If everybody
who doesn't like aspects X or Y of Python avoided posting here about
that, and went off to do their own PDL instead, the world would be a
happier and better place. And should any of the changes prove their
worth in the field, Python may eventually adopt them, or some variant of
them -- not likely but still more likely than such adoption coming from
the N-plus-1th rant here about (whatever feature it is that you
desperately want to add to Python).


Alex

 

[Tim Daneliuk]

...
Ha ha, very funny, but I think it's quite misplaced criticism.

Criticism? I thought we just announced a new product

 

[Istvan Albert]

Python BUT would want to see points A, B and C changed: make your OWN
language, derived from Python but with all the changes you wish. As

If you want a new experimental language that's sort like Python, spin off your own --
DON'T post here criticizing Python or trying to change it.

This sounds very much like an excuse for not listening
to criticism. It is also a somewhat of a conceited statement
since not everyone has either the time or the expertise
needed to start their own language. What then?
Should those that can't make a better python just shut
up? Is their view always wrong?

This sort of (IMO flawed) reasoning: 'if you don't like it make
your own' is often heard in the open source world. Arguably it is the
cause of so many redundant and unfinished pieces of software
that replicate 90% of each other's functionality yet lack the
maturity that would make them useful

The last thing the world needs is another python-like language
with say braces or without decorators...

Istvan.

 

[Alex Martelli]

This sounds very much like an excuse for not listening
to criticism.

It would be technically easy, say for me, to avoid listening to the
unending stream of criticism and demands for change that has been in
this forum and its predecessors "since forever" -- killfiles work well
for that. I still do see some problems in leaving those diatribes
systematically unanswered, but, ah well, if somebody can't be bothered
to do a tiny bit of homework, a little research on googlegroups say, and
see how his criticisms and demands have been made and answered a
thousand times in the past, I guess they deserve what they get (or
don't). But as far as actual requests for help and guidance this group
can be quite a bit more helpful -- I have no problem answering the same
beginner question for the 100th time -- if I don't have to start
killfiling systematically to avoid wasting my time in the 100th flamewar
about braces versus indentation, and the like.

It is also a somewhat of a conceited statement
since not everyone has either the time or the expertise
needed to start their own language. What then?
Should those that can't make a better python just shut
up? Is their view always wrong?

Not always, but frequently enough that cluttering this forum with those
unending discussions substantially reduces its usefulness for its best
purposes. The new languages are of course going to be much more open to
any suggestion for change and innovation than a language like Python, so
the new languages' discussion forums are going to be much more suitable
than c.l.py for all of that jazz. If something gets proven in the field
in another, experimental language, that is close in other ways to
Python, then obviously that's a much better argument for it than any
amount of diatribe and verbiage, which is generally all the critics in
question appear to be up to offering.

So, it would be of advantage to all if the critics went criticizing
elsewhere. Anywhere but here and python-dev, in fact.

This sort of (IMO flawed) reasoning: 'if you don't like it make
your own' is often heard in the open source world. Arguably it is the
cause of so many redundant and unfinished pieces of software
that replicate 90% of each other's functionality yet lack the
maturity that would make them useful

I entirely disagree with you: I see it as the cause of the existence of
Python (Guido didn't waste time on diatribes on Perl forums -- and Perl
itself, Larry ddn't waste time on diatribes on Awk forums...!), Gnome
(there was a lot of diatribe on KDE forums but eventually the Gnome
people did the right thing), and most other worthy technical innovations
that didn't happen to be the historically first attempt in their fields.

But here we're talking about examples where restarting from scratch was
clearly warranted because the desired differences were so huge. More
significant and relevant to the main topic are cases like OpenBSD, which
doesn't at all "lack maturity" and indeed IS very useful -- I personally
prefer it to FreeBSD for many security-crucial applications. If Theo
had spent his time ranting and raving rather than doing, we would not
have OpenBSD and I, for one, think that would be very sad.

If the would-be innovators don't want to "stand on the shoulders of
giants" by reusing that 90% of the other technology that they DO like,
when that's feasible (and opensource makes it feasible), they're
obviously pretty poor in judgment and technical savvy, infected with a
bad case of NIH syndrome or something of that ilk.

If they DO reuse, it's always possible (in an opensource perspective) to
selectively fold some changes back -- those which have proven their
worth and are judged compatible with the original 'trunk'. Much, much
better to experiment with all of this _outside_ of the mainstream
development of a language with millions of users and tens of millions of
existing lines of code still in production and needing maintenance!

The last thing the world needs is another python-like language
with say braces or without decorators...

Absolutely not: it needs yet another diatribe on this forum about say
braces (decorators are a quite different case as they're still new and
almost experimental) MUCH LESS than it needs anything else.


Alex