Python vs. Perl, which is better to learn?

[James J. Besemer]

Peter da Silva wrote:

> The fundamental problem is that C is not a good language to use for the
> basis of a modern object-oriented language. Too much of the semantics are
> hard-coded in the syntax, which is why C++ has so many increasingly desperate
> kludges added in by finding obscure combinations of symbols that hadn't been
> combined before.

Fascinating.  You must have a tremendous amount of experience with C++ under your
belt to be so dismissive of it.  I myself could only think of a few examples of
strange new language tokens: the scope resolution operator "::", "~" prefix for
destructors, and the pointer to member of structure operators.

What others were you referring to?

For the record, it seems to me that what makes C++ a little more complicated than,
say, Python or Java is it's reliance on static binding instead of dynamic and on
explicit constructors/destructors in lieu of garbage collection.  Stroustrup's goal
was to avoid the unavoidable runtime penalties associated with those two features
(present in most other OO languages at the time).  I think his was a valid goal for
some applications and I think his contributions are significant.

Is it your contention that garbage collection and dynamic binding are absolute
requirements for a "modern OO language"?  I'm not sure I'd agree with that
statement, though I agree the savings in programmer time is usually worth the
penalty in runtime performance.

> I don't want to use a C-derived language for OO code, no matter whether it's
> called C++, CO2, Objective C, C#, or Java.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion.  Good thing most of us live in a free
country.

Regards

--jb


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James J. Besemer  503-280-0838 voice
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