Why did no one invent Python before?

[Colin J. Williams]

Russell E. Owen wrote:
> In article <ec6dce8b.0406021449.6341a3fa at posting.google.com>,
>  j_mckitrick at bigfoot.com (j_mckitrick) wrote:
> 
> 
>>Yes, it's a silly question, but given how far we have come, why is it
>>that a natural looking, easy to read, incredibly powerful language has
>>appeared only recently, from a tech standpoint?
>>
>>I can't *believe* how much more productive I am with the built in data
>>types and powerful expressions Python offers.  It made me want to quit
>>my C++ job.  Well, not quite.  ;-)
>>
>>Seriously, why is a language like this only NOW appearing?  And aside
> 
>>from the interpreter, because while it is nice, it's not the main
> 
>>forte' of the language, IMHO.
> 
> 
> I think smalltalk users would argue that it was done many years ago. It 
> looks a bit odd at first to C programmers, but is easy to learn and has 
> most of the strengths of python:
> - interpreted
> - automatic garbage collection
> - simple and clean
> - powerful
> - rich set of collection types
> - rich set of libraries
> 
> There are a few important differences:
> - much worse for scripting
> - built in GUI
> - much better development environment; you really don't know what you're 
> missing until you've used smalltalk's browsers, inspectors and 
> debuggers. It's the main thing I really, really miss in python.
> 
I don't know about smalltalk, but, for the Windows user, Boa Contructor
and PythonWin provide a good environment.
> I think lisp users would also argue for their language. It's really 
> weird to non-lisp users (much more so than smalltalk is to C/python 
> programmers) but really powerful.
> 
> Anyway, I did not intend to detract from your praise of python. It is a 
> wonderful language, and my main language right now.
> 
> -- Russell
Colin W.