What is different with Python ?

[Philippe C. Martin]

I agree '...choice for the very beginners ...': a hundred year ago I was a
Pascal TA, and although I like the language, I find/found people stuggled
as much with the language as with the algorithm they were supposed to
implement.

"...mostly variants of Basic..." What I truly liked going from Basic (which
has greatly evolved) to Pascal was the fact I found a definite risk not
having to declare variable/ or rather I understood the lack of danger in
doing so: The one (so I thought) glitch with Python that almost made me
stop playing with was that very fact. yet I agree a complete beginner would
simply the approach most meaningful "why should I write int i = 1 since I
know 1 is an int". Since the "dangers" of old basic are gone from Python
(can't do i=y if y has not ever been initialized). I must agree with that
too. I'm actually pushing the few CS professors I know to use Python for CS
101. Yet, many issues that a future software engineer should know are
mostly hidden by Python (ex: memory management) and that could be
detrimental.

Regards,

Philippe






Claudio Grondi wrote:

>> 4) Yes I agree a mix ("... well spiced soup ...")
>> seems to be the answer but
>> my brain somehow wants to formalize it.
> 
> Here one further suggestion trying to point out, that
> it probably can't generally be formalized, because
> the experience one developes after going through
> the story of "assembly, basic, cobol, lisp,
> JAVA, c, c++, perl, Tcl, Java, JavaCard" has
> in my opinion a vital impact on shortcuts one uses
> and the way of doing things. I mean, that the concept
> of Python has raised from such experience, so anyone
> who went through all this, will get the core ideas
> implemented in Python without any effort, because
> they were already there as a kind of meta-language
> used in thinking, unconsciously looking for the
> chance of beeing  expressed in formalized form
> as a new programming language.
> To support my thesis I can mention here, that
> from my experience, Python seems not to be
> the language of choice for the very beginners,
> who prefere another approaches which are
> mostly variants of Basic.
> 
> Claudio
> 
> "Philippe C. Martin" <philippe at philippecmartin.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:GhIqe.3677$%j7.513 at newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...
>> Thanks ,
>> I have gotten many answers already, some not posted.
>>
>> 1) Typing is not the issue - even with RT-Kernels, people use C++
>> 2) Yes I find dynamic binding very nice
>> 3) "... you didn't give many examples of what you did for the
>> last 18 years (except that that also included RT kernels). ...." assembly
>> (losts) , basic, cobol, lisp, JAVA, c, c++, perl, Tcl, Java, JavaCard
> .....
>>
>> I know the "interactive" aspect helps also, the runtime error/exception
>> checking, the many libraries/tools, the responsiveness of the people on
>> this newsgroup, the "introspectiveness" of the system, the cross-platform
>> it deals with, the way it "pushes" people to code in a clean way, the GUI
>> support, the stability, the extensibility (in and out) .... I'm sure
> you'll
>> agree none of that can explain why after 1 week of playing with, I was
> more
>> productive in Python than C/C++ just as I know my product (I will not
>> describe it here as I am not marketing) would not exist today were it not
>> for Python.
>> 4) Yes I agree a mix ("... well spiced soup ...") seems to be the answer
> but
>> my brain somehow wants to formalize it.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Philippe
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Philippe C. Martin wrote:
>>
>> > I apologize in advance for launching this post but I might get
> enlightment
>> > somehow (PS: I am _very_ agnostic ;-).
>> >
>> > - 1) I do not consider my intelligence/education above average
>> > - 2) I am very pragmatic
>> > - 3) I usually move forward when I get the gut feeling I am correct
>> > - 4) Most likely because of 1), I usually do not manage to fully
>> > explain 3) when it comes true.
>> > - 5) I have developed for many years (>18) in many different
> environments,
>> > languages, and O/S's (including realtime kernels) .
>> >
>> >
>> > Yet for the first time I get (most) of my questions answered by a
> language
>> > I did not know 1 year ago.
>> >
>> > As I do try to understand concepts when I'm able to, I wish to try and
>> > find out why Python seems different.
>> >
>> > Having followed this newsgroup for sometimes, I now have the gut
>> > feeling (see 3)) other people have that feeling too.
>> >
>> >
>> > Quid ?
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> >
>> > Philippe
>>