Brandon's abrasive style (was Re: What's better about Ruby than Python?)

[kosh]

On Monday 18 August 2003 10:43 pm, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> I ask tough questions about Python vs. other languages and platforms.  Some
> people can't handle it.  Maybe they'd handle it if I diplomatically sugar
> coated it, but I'm not going to.  Things to irritate the "Brandon's a
> troll" crowd some more:

Your questions are not tough however they are designed to start fights which 
judging from  your history of posting you are very good at doing. You said at 
one point you where giving up on this group. I ask that you actually do that 
since no group actually deserves your abusive presence.You don't have to 
suger coat anything on this group but being polite does not require any kind 
of sugar coating.

Pointing out there is a problem with python speed for a certain kind of 
operation with a code example is fine.

Pointing out that python is stupid because it does not do what you want where 
what you want is never clearly stated and no code is presented is not.
>
> - Python is not a good language for low-level 3D graphics problems.  C++ is
> better.

Python talking to opengl is good for low level 3D graphics and use psyco to 
convert hotspots. If those spots are still hot convert it to C however for 
number work psyco can sometimes beat c and it is getting better.

> - Python isn't a rapid prototyping godsend for every problem out there.

Nothing is a godsend for every problem that exists. However that does not mean 
that python is very good.

> - GUI and tools support can end up being more important than language
> niceties.

Yes that is certainly possible. I use python with gideon for my ide uder kde 
since I find that is the most productive way for me to work. I do db apps 
mostly and the io slaves in kde give me transparent access from any app to my 
data outputs. IO slaves save me a huge ammount of time and I am aware of no 
equiv in in the windows or mac world. I can also use pyKDE to build gui apps 
in kde that get all of these features automatically.

> - Microsoft C# and .NET are strategic threats to Python's prosperity and
> vitality, if not survival.

This I don't buy at all. I see very little usage of this technology server 
side and I see much less work being done to put new ms solutions on the 
server. Most of what I see are java,python,php,perl etc solutions being done 
server side on unixes.

> - Pythonistas should consider trying to eat Java's lunch, because they
> aren't going to eat Microsoft's lunch.

I don't see why python has to do anything to java since you can run python 
code inside the java vm. Also I feel it is far easier to wipe out ms 
solutions server side then java. I have successfully built zope apps to beat 
out ms solutions server side however taking on java would be  good deal 
harder.

> - Ruby has some mindshare among people with knowledge of Python.

Good programmers should have at least a general idea of a lot of the languages 
that exist. Probably a lot of python programmers know what brainfuck is but 
that does not mean that any of them have any intention of using it. I know 
that ruby exists and I did a fair bit of reading on it the same as I have 
with C#, java etc howevver that just indicates that I am competent not that I 
want to use those languages.

> - Yet unnamed languages are capable of taking Python's place on the food
> chain.

Yet unnamed asteroid could be about to wipe out all life on the earth since we 
scan about 5% of the sky. This statement about something unnamed which 
someday in the future coudl wipe out python is certainly true. If it is a lot 
better I will probably switch without a second thought..

> - You have to promote your language, grow its market share, to prevent that
> from happening.

I disagree. 

>
> These analyses are called "sanity" in the Windows world.  It's Reality On
> The Ground.  It's really odd to come to a developer community where people
> are insular and freak out about these kinds of pronouncements.  It makes
> Windows people wonder if Python people are capable of industrial relevancy.
> Fortunately, I was pointed to the marketing-python list and I've discovered
> that not all Python crowds are the same.

Sanity in the windows world is a strange definition from what I can see. There 
is a lot of proprietary crap that is incompatible with other proprietary crap 
that changes its formats all the time to make hooking things together nearly 
impossible. If you stay only with microsoft software you can kludge stuff 
together to work but it is still a sad situation. You can keep your windows 
world and if it would make you happy you can also shove it. I will stay in my 
unix world which has been getting a lot bigger very quickly where buidling 
solutions that talk together is much more feasible with free software 
solutions. Linux and other unix variants are where the future is and MS is 
not.

>
> The rest of you: wake up!  Smell the Windows!

There is far more to the world then windows. A lot of custom apps, and server 
side technologies are used that have nothing to do with windows and are in 
areas where windows has no existance of any kind. You can't honestly tell me 
that you can build supercluster apps with windows.