what is python?

[Cameron Laird]

In article <7mt81n$s6e$1 at bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
Paul Johnston <johnston.p at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Hello people.
>
>I'm a relatively new programmer with a pretty strong java background.
>Although I've never used python, I keep hearing more and more about it, and
>I can't help but wonder what I'm missing.  I want to learn it, but I think
>the fastest way is to put it to work right away.  Therefore, I guess I'm
>trying to figure out what python excels in and then I'll allocate a
>problem-domain (in my own work) to apply it to -- hopefully this will be the
>most pragmatic approach.
Mr. Bower has quite rightly pointed you to python.org as the one
reliable place to start in researching such a question.  I'll add,
though, that this was precisely the subject of our <URL:http://
www.sunworld.com/sunworldonline/swol-02-1998/swol-02-python.html>.
>
>So what are people using python for?  What types of problems is python
Darn near everything.  Shockingly close to everything.
>better suited relative to, say, java?  I do alot of server-side programming
Hmph.  If you *really* need portability, Python's ahead of Java,
in several senses.  Lars Marius Garshol, by the way, has a few
wise words to say on their relative performance.

People use Python when they could use Java 'cause they get
things done quicker.  People who favor Python--I'm one of them--
find it *inviting* to program in Python.
>& xml stuff.
Server-side programming and XML--great subjects.  While there
are many ways to go about server-side Python, we occasionally
argue about whether Zope <URL:http://
starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/comp.lang.python/web_python.html#Zope>
will turn out to be the "killer app" for Python.  Its benefits
in this domain are dramatic enough to inspire such speculation.

It's hard to beat Java for richness of XML libraries.  Python
comes closer than any other language, with only a couple of
possible exceptions.  Programming Python remains more *fun*
than Java, even when XMLing.
-- 

Cameron Laird           http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
claird at NeoSoft.com      +1 281 996 8546 FAX