Moving functionality between languages (was: Controlling an external program with Python)

[Cameron Laird]

In article <395B32D1.B926FDB3 at hursley.ibm.com>,
Paul Duffin  <pduffin at hursley.ibm.com> wrote:
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>I agree which is why I suggested that rather than rewrite Expect in Python
>which is no more *orthogonal* than Expect in Tcl why not do as I suggested
>and work with Don Libes on seperating the pseudo tty control stuff into
>a seperate library which both Tcl and Python can use. Everyone would
>gain and noone would lose, the same could be done for Tk.
>
>      +-----------+    +----------+
>      | TclExpect |    | PyExpect |
>      +-----------+    +----------+
>
>       +------------------------+
>       |  Pseudo TTY management |
>       +------------------------+
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>This sort of arrangement is only possible when people who are interested in
>Expect functionality can transcend any language *issues*, by accepting that 
>the language is basically irrelevant apart from the effect in may have on
>the required functionality and work together.

Of course.  And I like to think of myself as a leader
in proclaiming this sort of language irrelevance.

I believe I've heard Don express surprise at Expect's
career.  He thought people would steal the ideas for
other (languages') libraries.  What he least expected
(sic), if I understand it correctly, was that the whole
world would be content to invoke Expect as the standalone
executable which we know utterly dominates its use.

How can we write new scenes for this play?  Alex consi-
stently looks for canonical decompositions, Paul says,
the code is already written and just needs a bit of
fitting, Jean-Claude Wippler scorns language issues as
purely epiphenomenal, I plead with the camps to play
nicer, ...  Is there one definite programming task we
can tackle to demonstrate what we're talking about?
MetaKit and Monoid are coming along at their own pace.
How much of a difference to Python will TkGS make?
Would Pythoneers like help plagiarizing Henry Spencer's
Unicode-aware RE engine?  Do we want good control of COM
through the network from Linux?  Should we get together
on something seriously trivial, like serial port manage-
ment or free-disk-space utilities or such?

If I were more current on biology, I'd probably draw
some conclusion from what works in transgenic
engineering.
-- 

Cameron Laird <claird at NeoSoft.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html