Python vs. C#

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Heiko Wundram wrote:
>Brandon wrote:
>>
>> Python advocates tend to pooh-pooh strong typing, and I'm wondering
>> if in a large-scale industrial context, if that's really a valid
>> stance to take.
>
> Where other people had written huge amounts of C++ code for a
> renderer, which was incomprehensible even to the original programmer
> after about a weeks time, my code remained "relatively" short and
> clean (I had to
> write it in 72 hours), nicely structured into separate modules, and
> with
> a well designed class inheritance scheme (which is pretty important
> for
> a renderer, for the user to be able to integrate his/her own objects
> later on).

Yes your rendering code is nice looking.  Is it fast?  Were you working on a
problem where it needed to be fast?  I haven't been using C++ out of love.
I've been using it for performance.  And I don't think "what I can do in 72
hours" is a valid test for big industrial system architectures.  Is your
code going to hold up in the face of dozens of programmers banging on it,
and hundreds or thousands of programmers using it?  And still be fast?

> I don't think that "static typing" (Python is strongly typed btw.,
> just to correct your statement)

It is?  Then I'm confused, because around here people keep talking about the
beauty of avoiding types.

> is any concern for most people (even for
> most executives, I guess my professors count as that too), just
> getting a
> working solution for a problem quickly, smoothly and readably. And
> that's what Python excels at.

What you are saying is Python excels at prototyping, where speed and
flexibility are paramount.  You are not saying that Python excels as a big
system architecture language, where stability and safety are paramount.

> Yeah, I can agree here. But in my experience, if I can show the people
> what power Python comes with ("batteries included"), after their
> amazement stops, they'll all start asking which book to buy to start
> learning. Even with the "power-play" Sun and Microsoft did to boost
> Java
> and C#, Python still seems as a valid and interesting alternative to
> most people I know (except those living in the "Microsoft-Universe",
> of course, but I guess I'll never save them from that big black hole
> anyway).

That "except" is, like, 1/2 to 2/3 of industry.  I think you Python guys
need to wake up that there's a much bigger, scarier, and more threatening
world out there than the UNIX world of "engineering done right."  That world
is also not sitting still, it's on the move.  For interoperability of
langauges, UNIX has nothing to offer like the .NET Framework.  DirectX is
now ahead of OpenGL on vertex/pixel shader API capability and stability.
The black hole, if not taken seriously, will swallow you.  Either that or
you're forced into "clone and conquer" in reverse.

-- 
Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.