New Python implementation

[Avi Gross]

Some of us here go way back and have stories to tell of what we did even
before Python existed. I won't rehash my history here now except to say I
did use PASCAL in graduate school and my first job before switching to C
which was less annoying to use.

What I am interested in, in this forum, is how Python grew and specifically
what motivated adding new features. I see it as a bit more like a Camel
created when a committee got together and decided to create a horse and one
of them wanted it to also do well in a desert and so on.

For teaching purposes, it can be useful to have a minimalist design and a
way to catch lots of errors such as by strong typing. Some of that may also
be useful in the real world. But in re-teaching someone now in another
language, I keep running into the fact that when I use newer and more
powerful features they feel overwhelmed  as they vaguely remember the
built-in way and the new way uses a piping metaphor they are not familiar
with. I have had others who started with the new ways and don't even want to
know how an earlier version of the language did it.

In the real world, having to read, let alone maintain, code that others have
had a hand in shaping and reshaping can be hard work if each person did
things their own way. We have discussed the many ways you can format text in
python and if a program uses them all, here and there, ...

But for an individual programmer, it is great to use whichever method feels
best for you, and especially if you came to python from another language
that method was borrowed from or vice versa. Being a rich language has pro's
and cons. LISP only had cons.

-----Original Message-----
From: Python-list <python-list-bounces+avigross=verizon.net at python.org> On
Behalf Of Alan Gauld via Python-list
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2021 6:23 AM
To: python-list at python.org
Subject: Re: New Python implementation

On 19/02/2021 03:51, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:

> 	They chose Pascal as being more modern, and something taught in 
> schools (yeah, like TurboPascal is going to be a good introduction to 
> writing software for real-time ground control of satellites).

Funnily enough it was. Or at least for real-time telecomms control.
We wrote all our real-time stuff on VAX and later PC using Pascal from the
mid 80s through to early 1990s when we switched to C++.
But TurboPascal was not much like Pascal, it had all the theoretical bits
by-passed or removed.

I still use Pascal in the shape of Delphi for building windows GUI apps
today... But Delphi bears even less resemblance to Wirth's Pascal, in fact
its quite similar to Python in many ways.

--
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld
Follow my photo-blog on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos


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