Python 2.0

[Jeremy Hylton]

>>>>> "GM" == Graham Matthews <graham at sloth.math.uga.edu> writes:

  GM> Hisao Suzuki (suzuki611 at okisoft.co.jp) wrote: : Me too.  And I
  GM> am afraid that some evangelists would do nothing : but _only_
  GM> point out Python's some so-called fault in order to : drive us
  GM> into convert to their favorite or invented language...

  GM> I am sorry Hisao but this is pure fantasy. This kind of "anyone
  GM> suggesting improvement to Python is a critic" mentality pervades
  GM> this thread and this newsgroup.

Strictly speaking, I believe a critic is "a person who judges,
evaluates, or criticizes."  (http://infoplease.lycos.com/ipd/A0393235.html)
So, yeah, people suggesting improvements are critics.  I think we all
benefit from having good critics.  All sorts of changes have come as
the result of constructive critism -- packages, the threading module,
[].pop, {}.get, etc.  Probably lots more that I'm not thinking of.

  GM> Hisao Suzuki (suzuki611 at okisoft.co.jp) wrote: : Anyway, as you
  GM> say, I'd think that we need an actual experience.

  GM> But people do have experience with GC. Sure that experience is
  GM> not in Python, but why do you believe that GC in Python will be
  GM> radically different to GC in any other language?

I think the problem is that the people who have experience
implementing garbage collection are not the people who advocating
adding it to Python.  It's one thing to have used languages with
garbage collectors or to have read books and papers about them; it's
quite another thing to have done the implementation.  The gap between
theory and practice is greater in practice than in theory.

So go for it.  Many of us would love to look at some rough, but
running code.  Just make sure it is portable enough to run on all the
platforms that Python runs on, and make sure it has minimal impact on
C extension modules.  I doubt that it's impossible, but I expect that
it's hard.

Jeremy