Future of the Python Linux Distribution
Michael Hudson
mwh21 at cam.ac.uk
Sun May 7 18:32:01 EDT 2000
Glyph Lefkowitz <glyph at twistedmatrix.com> writes:
> Vetle Roeim <vetler at news.ifi.uio.no> writes:
>
> > - age. the other "P" language[0] has been around a little longer.. right?
>
> I hear this tossed around a lot. How *much* longer?
I think perl was born in 1987 and Python in 1991. Not sure about
either of those though.
[biggo snippo]
> Unfortunately, one of the best features of the python community is
> that it seems to have a sane group of people in it who know multiple
> languages and will choose appropriate ones for the appropriate task.
> We need more rabid, unabashed evangelists. :-)
Why?
[little-o snippo]
> > [1]: I like Lisp, but it *does* have a PR-problem.
>
> Lisp *IS* a PR-problem. Lisp needs to change its name and shed some
> syntax before it's ever going to get 'mainstream' acceptance; the
> ideas in lisp are good, but too many cs students have been tortured
> with it ...
Lisp needs to *shed* some syntax? What are you smoking? Lisp has no
discernable syntax (and that's arguably one of it's better features).
Have you read "Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big" by Richard
P. Gabriel? It's well worth a read:
http://www.naggum.no/worse-is-better.html
IMHO, Lisp has not entered the mainstream because people are too
close-minded to realise that something can be both different from what
they are used to and yet a good thing. Not that modern lisp is
perfect, but it's flaws aren't insurmountable given, say, one tenth of
the money that's gone into Java.
Cheers,
M.
--
it's not that perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language
rewards idiotic behavior in a way that no other language or tool
has ever done -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp
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