Does Python really follow its philosophy of "Readability counts"?

[Rhodri James]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:13:41 -0000, Paul Rubin  
<"http://phr.cx"@nospam.invalid> wrote:

> Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> writes:
>> C is not evil.  It's a tool.  Would you call a hammer evil because it's  
>> not
>> very good at driving screws?
>
> I would call a hammer evil if it were built in a way that made it
> unnecessarily likely to hit your thumb.

But is that because the hammer is misdesigned, because you're holding
the nail all wrong, or because you're actually holding a screw?

>> C is a very good tool for doing the kind of thing it was designed
>> for, which is highly efficient, low-level, portable programming.

Um.  It wasn't designed for portability, or if it was, it wasn't
designed for portability very well.  Then again, what makes for good
portability at the level C works best at -- macroassembly -- is not
an easy question to answer given how variable your environment can
be.

>> The fact that C has been used to write all sorts of large-scale
>> applications doesn't mean that it's good at that kind of stuff.  It just
>> means that all the alternatives suck more than it does for that kind of
>> stuff.
>
> I don't think so:  http://www.adaic.org/whyada/ada-vs-c/cada_art.html

I agree.  I suspect that its more the case that once most
programmers have been taught how to use the hammer that is C,
all problems look like nails.

-- 
Rhodri James *-* Wildebeeste Herder to the Masses