Why is python not written in C++ ?

[David Cournapeau]

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 8:45 AM, Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> wrote:
> In article <i3e43n$v7c$4 at lust.ihug.co.nz>,
>  Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo at geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
>
>> In message <roy-6BCFA7.22564104082010 at news.panix.com>, Roy Smith wrote:
>>
>> > C++, for all its flaws, had one powerful feature which made it very
>> > popular.  It is a superset of C.
>>
>> Actually, it never was.
>
> Yes, there are a few corner cases where valid C syntax has different
> semantics in C and C++.  But, they are very few.  Calling C++ a superset
> of C is essentially correct.

This is only true if you limit yourself to C89 (as python seems to
do). If  you start using C99 (and lot of people do, if only because
they don't realize it because gcc is quite relax about it), then
almost no non trivial C code is valid C++ in my experience.

David