New to Python: Features

[Alex Martelli]

Richard Blackwood <richardblackwood at cloudthunder.com> wrote:
   ...
> >> I'd like to be able to use a string as an integer without an explicit
> >> coerion on my part for example.
> >
> >
> > NO!  Don't do that.  Bad code.  Subtle errors.
> >
> > Try Perl or Ruby instead.
> >
> Now your encouraging me not to use Python?

If you require a feature that Python does not have, never had, never
will, and which Pythonistas consider horrible from all points of view,
it would be unwise to encourage you to use Python: your desire can be
satisfied by languages designed with completely different criteria,
apparently criteria fitting in better with your desire.  Andrew was
wrong about Ruby -- it's a well-designed language, so the feature you
desire is of course not there -- but Perl _does_ have that feature you
desire, and 20 tons more, so you may be happier with it than with either
Ruby or Python.

((Ruby actually allows you to change behavior of built-in objects, so
you may make addition behave like subtraction, or automatically coerce
operands, or whatever else -- such excessive power in Ruby is exactly
the number-1 reason I use Python instead, but since many questions you
posed may be seen as hankering for just this kind of excesses, then you
might like this aspect -- Perl lets you reach even deeper down into the
bowels of the language and perform any level of hacks, google for lingua
latina perligata to see an example)).

> No, no, I want the C speed.

Then use C: no other portable language (including C++ when properly
used) quite matches C's speed across the board.  Good programmers
realize that "premature optimization is the root of all evil in
programming" and choosing a language based on the speed of its
implementations is the ultimate _premature_ optimization, of course;
they code in a powerful high-level language, then, iff more speed is
needed in some (typically tiny) corner of an application, recode that
part, only (e.g. in pyrex, a mostly Python-like language which
interoperates smoothly with Python and does "compile down to C").  If
you don't need portability, C's speed isn't optimal anyway; psyco (a
just-in-time optimizer for Python) can sometimes beat C by going
directly to machine language (but it only works for intel and compatible
CPUs, not for example for the PowerPC chips used in Apple's Mac
computers -- that is the downside, of course).

> > Why not just use Ruby?  It seems to fit your search criteria
> > much better.
> 
> Because Python is...well...more Pythonic.  I much prefer it (esp. 
> whitespace).

I suspect that with the same tricks used in 'lingua latina perligata'
you could make Perl use whitespace like Python, while keeping deeper
semantic aspects, such as the ability to add integers and strings, which
you appear to keenly desire.


Alex