[Python-Dev] FYI: Perl 6, Topaz, and exploding kidneys

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "FL" == Fredrik Lundh <fredrik@pythonware.com> writes:

    FL> as reported on slashdot:
    FL> http://www.perl.com/pub/1999/09/topaz.html

    FL> (topaz is also the code name for our "rewrite
    FL> Tkinter in Python", but that's another story ;-)

Here's an interesting quote:

    When I was trying to figure out how to be persuasive on this
    subject, I finally realized that Perl may be competing with Java
    in the problem space, but when you're writing Perl, implementing
    the Perl runtime, really what you're doing is something equivalent
    to writing a JVM. You're writing the equivalent of a Java Virtual
    Machine. Now, would you write a JVM in Eiffel? I don't think
    so. No, so neither would you write the Perl runtime in Java or in
    Eiffel.

In the context of Python, I disagree that it competes against Java;
Python makes a nice complement to Java.  And I obviously also think it
makes perfect sense to write (a) Python runtime in Java, as JimH has
so effectively proven.

Another interesting tidbit we've addressed here:

    Was the syntax appropriate for declaring variables to give
    appropriate hints to a hypothetical compiler? That is to say MY
    INT $X or MY STR $Y -- and I thought that the INT and the STR and
    the NUM should be suffixes, something like MY $X:NUM-and, in fact,
    that suffix syntax is something that Larry officially has blessed,
    but just not for this purpose.

-Barry