Python Quiz

[Duncan Booth]

pythonguy at Hotpop.com (Anand Pillai) wrote in 
news:84fc4588.0307152253.20858619 at posting.google.com:

> Hi Pythonistas,
> 
> I have placed a quiz on Python on the trivia site www.funtrivia.com.
> Here is the link.
> 
> http://www.funtrivia.com/quizdetails.cfm?id=139672
> 
> Looks like it is the first quiz on Python on this site.
> 
> Please try it out if you like quizzing. 
> Let me know if there are any factual errors.
> 
I think that questions 4 and 8 leave something to be desired.

At this year's ACCU conference, Guido talked somewhat about the history of 
Python. He said it was based on ABC, "other influences: Modula-3, C/C++ and 
even Smalltalk, Icon, Pascal, Algol-68". By my reckoning that makes two of 
the answers to question 4 correct.

On question 8, I'm not aware that Python borrowed anything from Java. Since 
it predates Java he couldn't have borrowed anything on day one (does anyone 
remember when Guido first got the time machine working?[1]), although 
admittedly the language has evolved since then. I suspect the object 
oriented similarities come more from a common ancestry. At the same talk as 
above he listed Lisp as an anti-influence, so it isn't clear to me whether 
lambda &c. were borrowed from CLISP as you claim or from functional 
programming generally. OTOH I can't exclude Fortran as an (indirect) 
influence. If the syntax for assignment isn't ultimately borrowed from 
Fortran, where did it come from?

[1] First Python reference to a time machine I can find is Paul Prescod in 
April 1998 proposing its construction, although it was obviously fully 
operational by September 1998.

-- 
Duncan Booth                                             duncan at rcp.co.uk
int month(char *p){return(124864/((p[0]+p[1]-p[2]&0x1f)+1)%12)["\5\x8\3"
"\6\7\xb\1\x9\xa\2\0\4"];} // Who said my code was obscure?