Python 3000 vs Perl 6

[Michele Simionato]

On Jun 24, 5:11 pm, bearophileH... at lycos.com wrote:
> Well chosen restrictions sometimes are very useful, they may act like
> a scaffolding, you can build higher constructions on them (Python has
> no macros, this is a restriction. But this restriction has some
> advantages. One of the main advantages is that it makes the Python
> code more uniform across different programmers, this is one of the
> thinks that makes the Python world so full of pre-made modules to do
> most of the things you may want to do).

I am all in favor of *well chosen* restrictions.
However the meaning of "well chosen" depends on the context. For
instance, just today I was reading this
very interesting paper on PLT Scheme object system:
http://www.cs.utah.edu/plt/publications/aplas06-fff.pdf
The interesting thing is that the whole system
is built in pure Scheme on top of macros, and still
it has an acceptable performance. In Python I could never
do the same, I would need to resort to C. So, while
I agree that for the common use cases of the enterprise
programmer Python is much more productive than Scheme,
a computer scientists experimenting with object systems
will probably find Scheme more suitable then Python.
But I am digressing. The point is that a language
with very few well chosen features (say Scheme)
allows you to build everything else on top of it
(say an object system) without needing to resort
to a different implementation language.
I program in Python much more than in Scheme for many reasons, but not
because I think that Clinger's maxin is wrong.

       Michele Simionato