C# vs (stackless) python Re: Why learn Python ??

[Aaron Watters]

jjl at pobox.com (John J. Lee) wrote in message news:<877jzwg1v2.fsf at pobox.com>...
> "Bicho Verde" <bichoverde at sapo.pt> writes:
> C#: Java for MS .NET users (to first order, anyway).  .NET has broader
>  goals than Java for language interoperation, so even though Jim Hugunin
>  and others have done some initial work on a .NET implementation of
>  Python, dynamic languages like Python will likely never be full .NET
>  citizens (thanks to the design of the .NET CLR).  If that full
>  citizenship is important to you, C# has that advantage, but I'm
>  reliably informed it's fairly well-described as "a Java clone"
>  (implying programmer-inefficiency), so I'd be inclined to look for a
>  better language with a good .NET implementation.  Lisp?  Smalltalk?
>  (there was talk of an excellent .NET smalltalk implementation, but I'm
>  not sure whether that was vapourware or not...)

C# also fixes a lot of stupidities in java: for example a method can
"return" more than one new value and there is a syntax for first class-ish
callback methods (delegates) among the more prominent improvements.
Also C# is far friendlier to "legacy" code (than java was originally
intended to be).

>From a pure code beauty point of view (or point of me/us :) ) Python
is still easier to read thanks to things like slicing,
list/dictionary displays, and keyword arguments
but type safety is a really big win for larger projects, and of course
C# is much faster.  

And once you get some feeling for the namespace
hierarchy and the development environment I think it is a fairly
productive work environment.  Maybe more productive than python?
There are some easily fixable problems/irritations --
like the way IO uses preallocated buffers in C++ style, which is
irritating but easy to wrap away.  To my taste I'd definitely prefer
C# over lisp or smalltalk.

There is the portability thing, of course.  And python is free...

OTOH *stackless* python has some *really* compelling advantages over C#
-- like the ability to feasibly manage thousands of microthreads,
which I wouldn't advise in C#, java, or "normal" python....

   -- Aaron Watters
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