Re: The “does Python have variables?” debate

[Chris Angelico]

On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 12:21 PM, Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> wrote:
> In article <536c3049$0$29965$c3e8da3$5496439d at news.astraweb.com>,
>  Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
>
>> Although Fortran is still in use, and widely so, it is mostly used for
>> accessing existing Fortran libraries rather than writing new
>> applications. There may be niches where that does not hold, where people
>> are actively writing new applications in Fortran, but they are niches.
>> Today, Fortran is rarely used for general purpose computing, updated
>> standards or no updated standards.
>
> Oddly enough, my current use of Fortran is via Python.  The scipy and
> statsmodels libraries use Fortran routines under the covers.

I'd like to argue that you're not using Fortran, then. You're making
use of it in the same way that I might make use of Ruby, PHP, and Perl
when I browse the web - the other end is running those languages, ergo
I am depending on them for my information, but I'm not actually
seeing, much less writing, any code in those languages.

ChrisA