Python is just as good as C++ for real apps

[Alex Martelli]

"Greg Weeks" <weeks at vitus.scs.agilent.com> wrote in message
news:1011928798.593378 at cswreg.cos.agilent.com...
    ...
> Anyway, complex numbers and geometric points and such can be represented
by
> by pointer-to-structure types.  The programmer can prevent the objects
from
> being mutated after they are created and can define equality to be the
> equality of parts.  Java and Python allow only this.  C++ provides more.
> If Stroustrup believes that this additional expressiveness is worth the
> added complexity, I'm disappointed.

The motivation is performance (time and space) rather than just
"additional expressiveness".  A point with two 16-bit coordinates
can fit in a single 32-bit register and can be used very speedily;
forcing it to be accessed via a pointer would double the memory
cost on typical machines and slow things down substantially.

Potential for extremely high performance has always been very high
among C++'s design objectives, even to the detriment of simplicity,
generality, and other nice concerns.


Alex