re AMTE thread re DrScheme & Python

[Thomas Hamelryck]

Kirby Urner wrote about python:
>     - badly implemented

Tim Peters answered:
: Maybe it refers to choice of language
: implementation techniques?  Python is a bit "old fashioned" that way.  Those
: are *extremely* complex tradeoffs, though, and Python has taken more of a
: "better clear than fast" approach than most other language implementations.

The only point I can think of that merits the term "badly implemented" is the lack of
proper garbage collection. The fact that objects cannot be garbage collected when they
contain circular references is IMO a major weak point in Python (I wonder wether Python 
2.0 will get rid of reference counting?).   
But these are indeed *extremely* complex tradeoffs: if introducing proper garbage 
collection means giving up easy portability and ease of writing extensions 
in C/C++ we can do without.  

Cheers,

---
Thomas Hamelryck    Institute of Molecular and Structural Biology
Aarhus University   Gustav Wieds Vej 10C
DK-8000 Aarhus C    Denmark