future of Python: Stackless, Standard -> fragmentation ?

[Michal Wallace]

On Mon, 9 Oct 2000, entropia wrote:

> Most of the people think that Stackless is better then Python (is more stable,
> permits pickling, coroutines and microthreads), but, as JVM has its
> limitations, JPython is incompatible with Stackless. I don't know, but I
> suppose then Python .NET has its own limitations. I want a good and powerful
> programing language, and not one limited by Sun or Microsoft. If we (python
> comunity) follow this two companies Python  can never be better than Java or
> C# (except in clear syntax ;-)).
> If I am a CEO of a big firm and I should choose between Java or Python, then
> Python is my last choice (but I, as a programmer, like most). I don't know to
> much things about C#, but if it exists a C# language then all the programmers
> will work with this.
> I prefer a "strong" Python Virtual Machine, Stackless or whatever, with
> bindings to other language. We have:


Python's VM, as I understand it, is really meant to run one
thing.. Python. If you want all your languages to talk to each other
and don't want it to run on a JVM or .NET, you might consider writing
a compiler to convert python to the free software foundation's
guile... After all, that's one of their goals.

http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html

>  In conclusion: There are modules that only work in Windows or
> Unix. There are some modules that don't work in Mac but work in
> Windows and Unix. This modules exists and are used. Why Python is
> limited by other languages? Compatibility is better than
> incompatibility, but it's not the only choice to be made.

Why is that bad? It takes an awful lot of work to make code cross
platform.. For example, to read and write MIDI devices requires a
completely different programming paradigm on linux and on windows..
Quite a few people have tried to get MIDI module authors to
collaborate on a cross platform library, but there's an awful lot of
work involved and so far no one's succeeded. The thing to do, I
think, if you want to make stuff more compatible, is pick a specific
area and start doing the work!

Cheers,

- Michal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.manifestation.com  www.sabren.com  www.linkwatcher.com  www.zike.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------