Is Python Dead? Long Live Python!

[Stephen Horne]

On 9 Jul 2001 12:09:23 -0700, web2ed at yahoo.com (Edward Wilson) wrote:

>Languages never die; they just fall out of use when they loose touch
>with the contemporary.  Python will become more or less mainstream
>(live or die) on it's own merits.
>
>A scripting language should be good at scripting.  From my
>observation, Python appears to be headed in more of an acedemic
>direction rather than that of mainstream commerce.  Acedemics are
>good, it's where technology comes from.  Unfortunately, I still
>haven't found a way to make money using Python.  If I can't make money
>with Python, then Python is dead to me.  I would imagine my voice
>represents a small crowd of developers, who wish they too could make
>money with and contribute to Python on a daily basis (on company
>time).

I'm curious - do 'academic' features include such features as...

1.  Nested scopes
2.  List comprehensions
3.  Iterators
4.  Generators

If so, maybe you should be aware that I *do* make money from Python,
and the first two version 2.x features have *already* made that
process much easier and much less of a headache, and my only regret
with iterators and generators is that they didn't come sooner - being
able to write generators would have made a utility I wrote recently -
with its own build-in little-language for the input files - much
easier, as the scanner, parser, *and* executor could all have been
written in a simple imperative style without needing to worry about
preserving state between tokens. The lexical and grammar rules were
too simple to bother with tool generated scanners and parsers -
designing and expressing grammar rules takes time, as does learning
the tools input format - but keeping track of what is, in a sense,
three concurrent threads is a pain.

I'm always seeking out ways to be more effectively lazy in the future.
If any task is awkward, fiddly, repetitive or error-prone, I start
thinking there must be a better way - and looking for it - especially
if that task is one I earn money from. Any paradigm or language
feature that allows me to earn more money with less effort gets my
vote - just the same as any pre-existing library.

Of course, I'm not writing yet another server-side scripted web site.
To have any chance of claiming PHP has greater acceptance than Python
implies this form of tunnel vision where only server-side scripted web
sites have any relevance. I assume more-or-less the same with Ruby,
though in truth I've barely heard of it. I certainly believe that
Pythons greatest strength is as a scripting language, and that it's
suitability for larger applications merely reflects the fact that it
is a *good* scripting language - but it isn't a single purpose
language by any stretch. Scripting doesn't just mean generating web
pages. I don't think the web even existed when Python started out.
Believe it or not, computers were used for a *huge* range of
applications before the web was invented, and those applications have
*not* gone away.