Lost at C

[Cameron Laird]

In article <qxJO5.7927$Qz2.324504 at typhoon.aracnet.com>,
Daniel Klein <DanielK at aracnet.com> wrote:
>I have done a bit of programming with Smalltalk and Java (but have never
>used C or C++) and for the most part you stay within the realm of the
>respective language. However, looking thru many of the posts in this
>newsgroup it appears that you need to be moderately familiar with C. So my
>question is:
>
>Do you have to learn C to use Python?
>
>Daniel Klein
>
>

Others have already observed that the correct answer is, "No."

Some people are *looking* to use C, for a variety of reasons--
they have legacy APIs, or real-world devices without high-level
interfaces, and so on.  At the same time, they have the good
sense to want a more productive vehicle than C.  Python is
*great* in this role.  They get to do all the things they want
or need, and still structure their work in a higher-level
language.

This can be a bit hard to appreciate coming from Smalltalk and
Java, because those are two language systems that are notori-
ously insular, and hostile to "foreign functions".
-- 

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