Why I love Python (warning: rambling)

[francois lepoutre]

Maybe what people like is all the extra software which has

been and is being written for python, which you do not have in smalltalk?
or what is it?

Pleasantly surprised to find a smalltalk user
here. Smart people

My .0002 cents on python success:

1989 - I spent a couple of intellectually rewarding
weeks (holiday ones ...) with the great Park's
books and a version of smalltalk

Was no computer science by education, just
basically a professional and a geek looking
for a practical tool to solve problems.

Tried to develop something useful. Was unable
to do so. The MVC model broke my brain.
But I discovered object orientation. It was a
great, unique and tasty experience.

2001 - my IIS module (an ISAPI-based servlet)
sometimes breaks. Will never know why...
Needed something a stable and simple way out
of this nightmare.

Enters python, no training, no book, just a couple
of hours reading online and off we go. I spat out
the code code for this reasonably complex app
in a couple of days, forgetting i was coding an
alien syntax. But was it alien?

Apache got in the way, sql engines as well, html
and javascript syntax too. Python never did.
Last time it happened was with visicalc back in
the beginning of the eighties...

My inner feeling is that python is the Esperanto,
not the Latin, of computer languages. Cleaner,
leaner, simpler.

If you can talk a few computer languages, you're
fluent in python as well. Ain't no religious matter
here. Just a compelling and enduring advantage.

By the way:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...ranto&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wg

 

[Daniel Dittmar]

OK, I'm on the python wagon as well, but I do not really se much
improvement over JAVA... especially when it comes to maintaining and
reusing code (e.g. API's)... here the types are really helpful. So

If you name a post with a subject about 'python and smalltalk' and then
start about 'python and java', then bondage and discipline languages are
definitely the right thing for you ;-)

The topic of static vs. dynamic types been discussed a lot here and
elsewhere.

Also, I see all this advocacy of python which to me seems more like
religion.. there is no concretenes in it, and I completely fail to
see how python beats any of the other dynamically typed languages
such as smalltalk or self... what is it with you guys?

When I started using Python, there were two reasons:
- no good free eimplementation of Smalltalk
- Smalltalk doesn't scale well to small tasks

Point 1 has probably changed with Squeak. But I'd really have to use it for
a while to be confident enough to inflict it upon others.

Don't know about point 2: When I had a new version of some small 'script', I
had only the alternatives
* to distribute full images
* to distribute source which the users had to integrate into their images
Maybe this has changed as well.


Daniel

 

[aku]

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...ranto&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wg

The article talks about Esperanto and says:
"Still widely spoken in that country"

This is humor people. there's as many people speaking Esperanto
here as that are walking on the moon right now.

aku

 

[Peter Hansen]

The article talks about Esperanto and says:
"Still widely spoken in that country"

This is humor people. there's as many people speaking Esperanto
here as that are walking on the moon right now.

As the author of that, I have to object slightly. Yes, it was
humor, but there are most definitely more people in the
Netherlands who speak Esperanto than there are people walking
on the moon, unless my lack of television has led to me missing
a few key events in the world of space exploration in the last
few years...

(Neither, however, is it really fair to say it's "widely
spoken", in the Netherlands, if one equates that to a large
number of speakers instead of merely to diversity of geographic
location...)

-Peter

 

[Tim Daneliuk]

OK, I'm on the python wagon as well, but I do not really se much
improvement over JAVA... especially when it comes to maintaining and

<SNIP>

My view on Python's real virtue from several years ago:

http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Python-Is-Middleware/

 

[Isaac Gouy]

When I started using Python, there were two reasons:
- no good free eimplementation of Smalltalk
- Smalltalk doesn't scale well to small tasks

Point 1 has probably changed with Squeak. But I'd really have to use it for
a while to be confident enough to inflict it upon others.

Yes Smalltalk has been around since the days when software was sold as
a product, so the main Smalltalk implementations are commercial - IBM,
VisualWorks (VisualWorks is available gratis for non-commercial use),
Dolphin.

GNU Smalltalk is a fine open-source implementation for POSIX.
Pocket Smalltalk is a fine open-source implementation for Palm.

Don't know about point 2: When I had a new version of some small 'script', I
had only the alternatives
* to distribute full images

Most Smalltalks provide for distribution of a stripped compressed
image.
Several Smalltalks provide for distribution of an EXE on MSWin.

* to distribute source which the users had to integrate into their images
Maybe this has changed as well.

It was never true ;-)
The commonplace approach is to have the Smalltalk runtime check a
known location for source code patches, and then automatically update.

 

[Donn Cave]

Quoth Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]>:
....
| My view on Python's real virtue from several years ago:
|
| http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Python-Is-Middleware/

What do you think now, several years later, about `A Little Warning'
at the end of that page?

Donn Cave, (e-mail address removed)

 

[Tim Daneliuk]

Quoth Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]>:
...
| My view on Python's real virtue from several years ago:
|
| http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/Python-Is-Middleware/

What do you think now, several years later, about `A Little Warning'
at the end of that page?

Donn Cave, (e-mail address removed)

I think that the community has mostly managed to keep this under control.
The additions to the language in the past several years, IMHO, have been
restrained, appropriate, and reasonable.

 

[Anton Vredegoor]

As the author of that, I have to object slightly. Yes, it was
humor, but there are most definitely more people in the
Netherlands who speak Esperanto than there are people walking
on the moon, unless my lack of television has led to me missing
a few key events in the world of space exploration in the last
few years...

Only if one is using statically typed concepts. There's a common
feeling here that the government operates at a very large distance
from the citizens of this country, and certainly doesn't speak
esperanto.

Anton