Python vs. Lisp -- please explain

[Torsten Bronger]

Hallöchen!

[...]

I'm still afraid of the following scenario: Eventually, people
might regard "RPython plus type declarations" (or something
similar) as first-class Python because it's faster and runs on
more implementations, so they try to stick to it. So effectively
you would have changed Python.

I wonder why you believe that it would run on more platforms?

I meant the following: RPython programs will run on all Python
implementations, *plus* the environments where only RPython is
possible.

This assertion is justifiable with regard of tiny target hardware
- but else? I do think that "RPython++" could be a viable
replacement for C as a systems programming language BECAUSE it is
connected closely to Python.

Ah, okay. This was a vision that I didn't understand from previous
postings.

[...]

Maybe I misunderstood something because I could not follow all of
Kay's text but I think one should not change Python or create a
look-alike to allow for better implementations. The language
should fit my brain rather than an implementation.

It should first of all fit the diversity of a programmers needs. C
was never considered as a hostile brother of Python so why should
it be Pythons own son?

Because I think it would be tempting to add all necessary declations
in order to make one's code working with the fastest Python
implementation available. After all, mostly we know the types,
although currently we don't declare them. It's a purely
psychological issue: People want to create "valueable" code,
pythonistas even more so, ignoring that eventually it may turn out
that this was not a good idea. Current Python *forces* us to keep
the code as flexible as possible.

Tschö,
Torsten.

 

[Christos Georgiou]

Chris Mellon wrote:
[...]

Torstens definition isn't useful for quantifying a difference between
interpeted and compiled - it's a rough sort of feel-test. It's like
how much of a naked body you can expose before before it changes from
art to pornography - it's not something that is easily quantified.
[...]

Possibly, but if your aim is exposing as much flesh as possible without
being labeled pornography I think I'd conclude you were in the
pornography business from the start, albeit masquerading as an "art dealer".

The difference between art and pornography, as I perceive it, is that you
don't have to think about it when you see pornography. You can even turn
off the audio in cinematographic/video pornography and still the message
comes through (in the vague lines of "jerk off along").

So, in pornography there's no interpretation step involved; therefore, by
pure logic, all "compiled to machine code" languages should be looked down
upon as pornographic, and Python is art. QED.


PS You (the READER) are licensed to substitute other "non compiled to
machine code" languages for Python (the PROGRAM) in the previous paragraph,
just do it outside comp.lang.python (the COMPANY). We don't care what you
do late at night with *your* object of desire, whatever that may be, since
it's not Python.