Java vs Python

[Moshe Zadka]

On Thu, 25 May 2000 faatdilac at my-deja.com wrote:

> Oh yeah, and which language do you think the trio Larry, John and Guido
> use to develop Perl, Tcl and Python.
> BTW, Matz also uses C to develop Ruby.
> 
> Amateur does not know to appreciate the very tool that creates the
> universe of programming languages, it's C.

The only reason those people used C was that "it was there, and it was
portable". This made for a very wise decision socially (which is part of
the reason Python/Perl/Tcl are popular), but C was certainly not the
optimal language for that. Consider, for example, that a Java programmer
does not have to learn Java/Python API -- she merely writes Java classes,
and JPython can use those. Consider that the real pain with writing
extensions for all three is to manage memory, something that would be
spared if Scheme/Lisp/Java were selected as an implementation platform.

C is a good language for what it does, but claiming that the fact Python
is written in C makes C "holier" is not very accurate. Not to mention that
this would suggest that JPython proves that Java is the perfect platform.

--
Moshe Zadka <moshez at math.huji.ac.il>
http://www.oreilly.com/news/prescod_0300.html
http://www.linux.org.il -- we put the penguin in .com