Python development tools

[Ben Finney]

rusi <rustompmody at gmail.com> writes:

> On Monday, June 24, 2013 11:50:38 AM UTC+5:30, Ben Finney wrote:
> > Any time someone has shown me a “Python script”, I don't see how
> > it's different from what I'd call a “Python program”. So I just
> > mentally replace “scripting with “programming”.
>
> If you are saying that python spans the scripting to programming
> spectrum exceptionally well, I agree. 

I'm saying that “scripting” is a complete subset of “programming”, so
it's nonsense to talk about “the scripting-to-programming spectrum”.

Scripting is, always, programming. Scripts are, always, programs. (But
not vice-versa; I do acknowledge there is more to programming than
scripting.) I say this because anything anyone has said to me about the
former is always something included already by the latter.

So I don't see much need for treating scripts as somehow distinct from
programs, or scripting as somehow distinct from programming. Whenever
you're doing the former, you're doing the latter by definition.

> I dont however think that the two philosophies are the same. See
> http://www.tcl.tk/doc/scripting.html

That essay constrasts “scripting” versus “system programming”, a useful
(though terminologically confusing) distinction.

It's a mistake to think that essay contrasts “scripting“ versus
“programming”. But the essay never justifies its aversion to
“programming” as a term for what it's describing, so that mistake is
easy to make.

-- 
 \       “A celebrity is one who is known by many people he is glad he |
  `\                                  doesn't know.” —Henry L. Mencken |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney