Python was designed (was Re: Multi-threading in Python vs Java)

[Jussi Piitulainen]

rusi writes:

> However - to speak a little for Mark's perspective (from a hopefully
> more educated background): There's a fine line between laboriously
> simulating a feature and properly supporting it:
>
> - C has arbitrary precision arithmetic -- use gmp library
> - C is a functional language -- use function pointers and/or
>   hand-generated macros with macro operators # and ##

A tangent, but I cannot resist: that latter point is literally the
first thing I ever heard about C.

I knew some Basic, 6502 (dis)assembler, I think Pascal, and probably
Forth, at the time, and I had some idea about what functional
programming means. I may have been already interested in Scheme, but I
don't think I had access to an implementation yet.

Then I overheard an acquaintance telling another: "C is a functional
programming language" ("C on funktionaalinen ohjelmointikieli").
Interesting! But when I later learnt some C it turned out to be almost
the opposite of functional programming.

I guess it was the terminology: Pascal had "procedures" and
"functions" while C only had "functions".

(Mis)information was not as abundant back then as it is now.