why is python better than eg. smalltalk?? no one has any solid arguments! you should all go to church with all that religious talk!

[eltronic at juno.com]

> From: "Carlo v. Dango" <oest soetu.eu>

> > On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 , Andy Jewell <andy wild-flower.co.uk>  wrote:

> OK, I'm on the python wagon as well, but I do not really se much 
> improvement over JAVA... especially when it comes to maintaining and 
> reusing code (e.g. API's)... here the types are really helpful. So just

> saying typing is bad, is to me, plain wrong.
> 
> Also, I see all this advocacy of python which to me seems more like 
> religion.. there is no concretenes in it, and I completely fail to see
how 
> python beats any of the other dynamically typed languages such as 
> smalltalk or self... what is it with you guys? :)

isn't there a convention in blind tests when something is so obviously 
better, effective, cheaper, that the test is stopped 
and the placebo group are given the real thing?
it ain't hype if it's true!
at some point quantifying what is obvious through anecdote 
after similar anecdote is a criminal waste 
of time, brain and cpu power.

to me, Python is fun, compared to every other language.
but am I more productive?
only if you consider that the distance between getting an idea 
and having working code is shorter. that having working code 
that is readable promotes reuse and now the distance 
between idea and code is getting even shorter. 
what is impossible to measure is that more complicated ideas 
are now, to me, cost effective. time is saved when you can easily 
send to or return a tuple to a function. w/o worrying about static 
storage space. lazy evaluation, huge debugging win when you 
can isolate when something breaks non withstanding the argument 
"the compiler would've caught that", as the static typers like to say.

how did I avoid python for so long? I've been searching for most of the 
past 14 years first on Usenet at $0.40 cents/minute dialup, then the web
and long before that in books and magazines and BBs's and libraries 
for code, algorithms, ideas. as it turns out I was looking for what 
python already has had. 
a way to turn ideas into programs, 
to turn keys & clicks into repeatable actions in the real world.

It wasn't until I had already started converting all my scripts 
and tools to python that I realalized how many times python turns
up in searches, why had I only followed the link to flawfinder and Leo?
and only then even bothered to read the FAQ. half way through the 
FAQ and a few minutes with the interpreter was all it took for me,
was the python association with Zope early insecurities a deterrence?

> the  beauty of Python... and by the facilities,  libraries and support
> infrastructure (i.e. c.l.py).
>
> Python does seem to magnify the flaws in other languages: everything
else
> seems (to me at least) to be second-best now.
>
> Slither On!
>
> -andyj
>
>

e
http://rClick.netfirms.com/rCpython.htm

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