a different question: can you earn a living with *just* python?

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Roy Smith a écrit :
> In article <mailman.845.1159401951.10491.python-list at python.org>,
>  "Carl J. Van Arsdall" <cvanarsdall at mvista.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>>Things like decorators and metaclasses certainly add power, but they add 
>>>complexity too.  It's no longer a simple language.
>>>  
>>
>>Well, I think a simple language is a language that makes the simple 
>>things simple and some of the complex things simple.  But I also like a 
>>language where, if I need it, I can tap into some raw power and do that 
>>really wild stuff.  So its simple to use if that's all you need yet 
>>offers the complexity to get things done that a purely "simple" language 
>>can't do.  I'd say its as simple as you want it to be :)
> 
> 
> The problem is, if the complex features are there, people will use them.  
> On any large project, there will always be some people who revel in using 
> every obscure feature of a language.  That forces everybody else on the 
> team (and all future members of the team) to know (or learn) those features 
> in order to be able to use and maintain the code base.

The fact is that these "complex" features allow to *greatly* simplify 
things, specially on "large" projects - that may not be that large after 
all. Now wrt/ being "forced" to learn these features, it's certainly 
more rewarding and less difficult than having to grasp Javaish monster 
hierarchies and overcomplicated frameworks where you have to define 
interfaces and classes for something as dumb as a callback function.

Believe me, I've seen Python code that was really quite complex (and 
hard to maintain) *because* it didn't use the "obscure" features of the 
language. "When the only tool you have is a hammer..."