Number of languages known [was Re: Python is readable] - somewhat OT

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 8:05 AM, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 08:48:53 -0700 (PDT), Steve Howell
> <showell30 at yahoo.com> declaimed the following in
> gmane.comp.python.general:
>
>        REXX is inhibited by the architectures to which it has been ported
> -- limiting the ADDRESS targets to variations of Python's os.system() or
> popen() calls; even the subprocess module can't get beyond the all or
> nothing execution model.
>
>        Much different from the original IBM environment (and, biased, the
> Amiga implementation may have gone beyond the IBM one in capabilities)
> wherein compliant programs become the "command shell" for REXX command
> processing -- actual bidirectional interactive interprocess
> communication. Window's COM system offers some of that capability, but
> buried in a cryptic object programming system -- nothing like having a
> script sending the /same/ command that one would use in a text interface
> to the target program.

Some years ago, I wrote a MUD that used REXX as its scripting
language. (The server's still running, but not so much to be a MUD as
to be my administrative interface to that particular box. I'm like
that with MUDs.) I thought it was really cool to be able to simply put
a bare string and have that get sent to the player - for instance:

/* Command handler for some particular location in the MUD */
if arg(1)="foo" then do
    "You begin to foo."
    /* do some stuff */
    "You finish fooing."
end

Having now built MUDs in Pike, I'm not so impressed with the syntax.
But hey, it's a completely different use of the ADDRESS command! :)
And of course, I can always use ADDRESS CMD "blah blah" to execute
commands.

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 10:25 AM, Steve Howell <showell30 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Apr 2, 2:50 pm, Chris Angelico <ros... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hmm... How do you pipe one command's output into another's input using
>> Python? It's not nearly as clean as it is in bash.
>
> For pipes, I'd still call out to bash.  I know that's cheating, but
> the idea is that Python can wrap all the good parts of bash while
> still allowing you to use Python's more modern syntax, standard
> library, etc.

So, it's not that Python is a superset of bash, but that Python+bash
is a superset of bash. Well, that is certainly understandable. And
needn't be too onerous syntactically either:

from os import system as x

x('do_stuff')

ChrisA