Boss wants me to program

[Chinook]

On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 08:11:43 -0400, phil wrote
(in article <42C28FFF.7010303 at anvilcom.com>):

> 
> Comes down to preference.  Isn't it absolutely amazing how many
> choices we have. Remember the 70's - Cobol, ASM, C, Basic.CICS(shudder)
> 

And please, no eulogies (especially for CICS) - being reminded of them is bad 
for my heart :~)  I once did a engineering modeling system in IBM 1130 
assembler that ran with overlays in 32K memory, because FORTRAN was too 
hoggish.  Input was the console keyboard and output was a CalComp plotter. 

> 
> Python reminds me more of Linux.  Incredible no of packages,
> kinda disjointed, docs pretty bad, not integrated.
> But amazing stuff if you have the stomach for it.
> (seen pygame?)
> Maybe Python will get a daddy someday.
> 

Seriously, having been involved in several (so called) high-level 
productivity languages over the years on both IBM and HP (3000 series), I am 
really enamored with Python (not to mention being on the user end :~).  
However, as you say ("needs a daddy") it is still for the most part in 
hackerdom evolution, and will not be a "mainstream" development platform 
until a Sun/IBM/whatever takes it under-wing with that intention in an open 
environment (the "suits" have to be convinced they can gain big time 
otherwise).  Can that happen in the Open-Source arena - I'm not convinced it 
can because such is more akin to a staging ground at present.

And what would be really cool is that if the same thing happened with Linux - 
it evolved to an elegant OS X like GUI without losing the intuitive 
underbelly.  

Just any "daddy" won't do though.  The least beneficial would be the path of 
DOS (sorry, I'm not a MS fan :~)).  A major problem is that business thinking 
(i.e. the "suits") is overly monopolistic to the point of 
counter-productivity.  Rather than an evolving open mainstream development 
platform (i.e. technical productivity competition) and commercial products 
emanating from such, the "suits" are focused on milking anything they can get 
their hands on with only short-term bonuses in mind.  I guess it all gets 
down to human nature (or as Pogo said ...).

Enough, before I really get carried away.

Lee C