A critic of Guido's blog on Python's lambda

[brian at sweetapp.com]

Bill Atkins wrote:
> Buh?  The project doesn't have to be late for Brooks's law to hold;
> adding programmers, so goes Brooks reasoning, will always increase the
> time required to complete the project because of various communication
> issues.

1. This is not what Brooks says. Brooks was talking about late
   projects. Please provide a supporting quote if you wish to continue
   to claim that "adding programmers will always increase the time
   required to complete the project".
2. There has to be a mechanism where an organization can add
   developers - even if it is only for new projects. Python advocates
   would say that getting developers up to speed on Python is easy
   because:

    - it fits most programmers brains i.e. it is similar enough to
      languages that most programmers have experience with and the
      differences are usually perceived to beneficial (exception:
      people from a Java/C/C++ background often perceive dynamic
      typing as a misfeature and have to struggle with it)
    - the language is small and simple
    - "magic" is somewhat frowned upon in the Python community i.e.
      most code can be taken at face value without needing to learn a
      framework, mini-language, etc. (but I think that the Python
      community could do better on this point)

   I'm sure that smarter people can think of more points.

> Fair enough. But what does Python offer above any garbage-collected
> language that makes it so scalable?

See above point - you can more easily bring programmers online in your
organization because most programmers find Python easily learnable.
And, as a bonus, it is actually a pretty flexible, powerful language.
 
Cheers,
Brian