Python not a Very High-Level Language?

[Boudewijn Rempt]

Ajith Prasad <aprasad at magix.com.sg> wrote:
> http://www.oreilly.com/news/vhll_1299.html is an article by Greg Wilson
> casting doubts on the effectiveness/value of Python and other very high
> level scripting languages. Wilson comments that:
> "Over the past few years, I have done several medium-sized projects using
> both Perl and Python. At first, I was very excited by what these Very-High
> Level Languages (VHLLs) let me do, and how quickly. The more I played with
> them, however, the less satisfied I was. In particular, I no longer believe
> that they deserve the 'V' in their name. This article explores why, and
> suggests some ways in which they could evolve." Worth responding to as it
> includes detailed criticisms of Python in particular.

Yes, I read that too, a while ago, and it got me thinking about what
a language like he proposes would look like. He made two striking
suggestions - being able to draw part of the logic, in the sidebar of the
code, as it were, and having a sort of underlying representation of the
code (he said xml, but that's what everyone is saying these days), so that
a particular development tool could show the code in various helpful ways.

I think, however, that he has confused the language with the creation
and maintenance tool (I hesitate to call it an editor anymore), Already
in Steve MacConnels Code Complete, there was a proposal for an ideal
programming environment. I do think even the best editors aren't
getting close to the sophistication enjoyed by users of basic stuff
like webbrowsers (the KDE2 general browser Konqueror is incredibly
sophisticated) or office suites - so there he has a point.

But even so, he doesn't mention good stuff like the ways you can nowadays
combine code and documentation (as in Qt), or work with diagrams. Class
browsers already exist (even though I find most of them more confusing
than helpful). It's only the presentation that's lacking, I think. But
for that you don't need in intermediary language, although that would
come in handy to make one environment work for more than one language.

I'd like to write a programming environment that not only included
syntax highlighting, but also linking to documentation, a rich
presentation of the program and its logic, but I suspect programmers
will always go back to the ascii source. I know I do when I have to
work with Visual Basic... It's the only way to clean up the mess
produced by a too complicated environment. And anyway, I've first
to finish my linguistics application and the simple xml editor I'm
working on ;-).


-- 

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://denden.conlang.org