Why did Quora choose Python for its development?

Roy Smith roy at panix.com
Wed May 25 07:36:40 EDT 2011


In article <mailman.2052.1306303508.9059.python-list at python.org>,
 Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 24 May 2011 13:39:02 -0400, "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy at druid.net>
> declaimed the following in gmane.comp.python.general:
> 
> 
> > My point was that even proponents of the language can make a
> > significant error based on the way the variable is named.  It's like
> > the old Fortran IV that I first learned where the name of the variable
> > determined whether it was an integer or a floating point.
> >
> 	Only if one didn't declare the type ahead of time...
> 
> 	And even then it wasn't that hard to remember (using a non-PC
> mnemonic): Indian's are integer (variables starting I to N inclusive
> were integers)

Remembering that I, J, K, L, M, and N were integer was trivial if you 
came from a math background.  And, of course, Fortran was all about 
math, so that was natural.  Those letters are commonly used for integers 
in formulae.  If I write $ x sub i $, anybody who knows math would 
immediately assume that the range of x was reals and the range of i was 
integers.



More information about the Python-list mailing list