Python w/Forth Runtime????

[Skip Montanaro]

    >> > The overal article is about the dangers of locking into a single
    >> > programming paradigm (like OO) for everything and that real world
    >> > problems require multiple *simultaneous* paradigms for reasonable
    >> > solutions.  I think Python is almost alone in trying to incroporate
    >> > that very idea in the language.
    >> 
    >> Python is not alone in this.
    >> 
    >> Common Lisp conspicuously supports multiple simultaneous paradigms.

    Tim> Could you expand on this a bit?  It has been a *very* long time
    Tim> since I even looked at Lisp, let along programmed it...

My feeble take on things: Various Lisp dialects support OO (CLOS, etc).  I
can't imagine any don't beat the pants off Python as far as functional
programming is concerned.  I'm sure there are interfaces to various
relational databases available.  Event-driven programming is also possible
("when this happens, call this").  Programming using exceptions
(catch/throw?, condition-case, save-excursion, etc, instead of try/except).

As in Python, you're not constrained to any one paradigm, though its
functional tendencies may dominate.  For that matter, C++ supports all these
paradigms as well.  It's just that its OO support is emphasized.

Oh, wait minute.  So does Perl.  And Ruby.  And Tcl.  And Java.

I think the thing about Python is not that it supports this multi-paradigm
approach all that much better than any other language, it's that its
faithful don't get too hung up on any one of the paradigms it does support.

Of course, this thread ignores issues of clean syntax, batteries included,
and powerful builtin data structures that also help give Python a leg up on
most/all the competition.

-- 
Skip Montanaro (skip at pobox.com - http://www.mojam.com/)
"Excellant Written and Communications Skills required" - seen on chi.jobs