print statement and multithreading

[Charles Hixson]

Alex Martelli wrote:

> ...
> > The point I am trying to make is that all sorts of questions
> > arise when you say "CPython source is Standard ANSI C".
>
> They don't arise in my mind, and I don't think they arise
> in the mind of anybody who's not being deliberately
> non-cooperative about it.
> ...
> Alex

Actually, questions (similar) to that frequently arise in my mind.  But
have never reached the point that I would purchase one of their
standards.  I'm not actually certain just how valuable I would find the
standard, but I am rather unhappy that they are so expensive.  I don't
suppose that there actually is any price that is justifiable, whether
free or $99,999 / copy.  The standards are expensive to produce.  They
are only useful to the extent that people know them.  And they are
usually so dry that very few people would actually bother to read them
(as opposed to some popular abridgment).

Still, it would occasionally be nice to be able to check up on fine
points (e.g.:  I'd sure like to do this, but would it be standard?).
The time that one would want to look things up is BEFORE one has
written the code, so saying "Trust your compiler writer", while
effective (usually), is certainly sub-optimal.  I.e.:
1) design the code
2) write the code
3) debug the code
4) assume that it meets the standard.

Now it's certainly true that step 3 will catch much more than standard
violations, but not being able to catch the standard violations until
then ....  Sometimes if I had know the standard precisely ahead of time
I would have chosen a different language (a somewhat touchy point as I
have been dithering between 5 languages for and upcoming project
[personal, not work] for over 6 months, trying to figure out which
would best support the various things that I need.  My current best
guess it that it will require three languages [ugh!] to do the job in a
portable manner.)

-- (c) Charles Hixson
--  Addition of advertisements or hyperlinks to products specifically
prohibited

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: charleshixsn.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 153 bytes
Desc: Card for Charles Hixson
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/attachments/20000829/00112153/attachment.vcf>