Python as Guido Intended

[Ben Finney]

Antoon Pardon <apardon at forel.vub.ac.be> wrote:
> On 2005-11-29, Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> wrote:
> > Antoon Pardon <apardon at forel.vub.ac.be> writes:
> >> Mike Meyer wrote:
> >>> You see, you can make languages more powerful by *removing*
> >>> things from it.
> >> You cast this in way to general terms. The logic conclusion from
> >> this statements is that the most powerfull language is the empty
> >> language.
> > The only way you reach that conclusion is if you read the
> > statement as saying that removing things *always* makes a langauge
> > more powerful. That's not what I said,
> I would say it is the common interpretation for such a sentence.

You'd be wrong. "you can do X by doing foo" does not exclude "you can
do the opposite of X by doing foo".

Stating "you can make a lot of money by investing in the stock market"
does not imply that is the only possible outcome, nor even the most
likely.

> > Just because Python isn't perfect is no reason to make it worse.
> 
> Why is it worse. You seem to think that if one has a toolbox, which
> lacks a hammer, that the fact that the hammer can be abused makes
> your toolbox less usefull if you add a hammer to it.

I see Mike arguing that the debate before adding the hammer is a good
thing. It ensures that only the *really* good tools -- the ones that
are so beneficial that they outweigh complicating the toolset --
actually get added; and only when they are in a form that they
overcome many objections.

> > The only way this would be good is if "more features" were
> > inherently better. That's simply not true. So the change in
> > behavior you're looking for isn't clearly good.
> 
> No, this is good while there are still possible features that could
> make python a better language

Then let's subject those possible features -- with their real use
cases and implementations -- to harsh scrutiny, over an extended time,
before deciding they'll be a net benefit.

-- 
 \     "Unix is an operating system, OS/2 is half an operating system, |
  `\       Windows is a shell, and DOS is a boot partition virus."  -- |
_o__)                                                  Peter H. Coffin |
Ben Finney