Perl is worse! (was: Python is Wierd!)

[Alex Martelli]

"Grant Edwards" <ge at nowhere.none> wrote in message
news:iWhg5.2682$6E.684157 at ptah.visi.com...
    [snip]
> Why does "what non-programmers do" matter when designing a
> programming language?

It matters if you care about how easy/hard it is to turn those
"non-programmers" into "programmers in the language you
are designing".  E.g., the CP4E project, which used to be
aimed at turning _everybody_ into programmers, had better
take a huge amount of care about it; while a language such
as C++, which never had among its many design goals that
of being at all easy or appropriate to learn as a first
programming language, can basically ignore it.

Where Python fits, I don't know, but I suspect it would be an
excellent first-language (except for those who belong to the
"bondage-and-discipline" school of programming, and/or of
teaching-to-program, who would surely be better advised to
look at Pascal or some of its successors).


Alex