Comments requested: brief summary of Python

[Adam Barr]

paddy3118 at netscape.net (Paddy McCarthy) wrote in message news:<2ae25c6b.0402241324.38c87c08 at posting.google.com>...
> adamba at gte.net (Adam Barr) wrote in message news:<ce782195.0402232218.6e64177c at posting.google.com>...
> > For a book I am working on, I have written a brief (9 page) summary
> > of Python. The intent of this is that an experienced programmer who
> > did
> > not know Python would be able to get enough information to read and
> > understand Python programs. It is not meant to be a 100% complete
> > summary of the language, but everything in there should be correct.
> > 
>  <<SNIP>>
> > The file is at
> > 
> > http://www.proudlyserving.com/language/python.pdf
> > 
> > I have written similar summaries for other languages and will
> > hopefully post them (with a virtually identical message) in the
> > appropriate newsgroups in the next few days.
> > 
> > Thank you.
> > 
> > - Adam Barr
> > adamba at gte.net
> 
> Hi Adam.
> First off, Congratulations, I read the Perl and Python PDFs and saw
> nothing that I thought you had purposefully written to start a
> language war.
> 
> I'll confine my comments to the Python PDF  (so I don't re-kindle any
> wars :-).
> 
> 
> I made a few notes whilst reading through your file that I will add at
> the end but I can't help but think that your description of Python is
> for using it in an un-Pythonic manner (as others have stated). Whilst
> you may explain enough Python for someone to follow any examples you
> have in your book, I fear that the algorithms and language structures
> that you may use would not be those favoured by Python programmers.
> I'll touch on some of these areas later.
> 
> The notes are on points roughly in the order given in your document.
> 
> 1) You mention variable for i and then state that variables cantchange
> their type once set. In Python we like to call the 'i' in your example
> a name and say it points to an object and that the *object* has a type
> and the type of that, individual object will not change. The name can
> be made to point to another object that could have a different type
> but the type of the first object is not changed.
> 
> [other stuff deleted]

Excellent comments, thanks. Especially the comment above about names
vs. objects, that is very clear and I will change it to speak about
them that way.

- adam