running python 2 vs 3

[Mark H Harris]

On 3/20/14 4:28 PM, notbob wrote:
> No wonder the latest O'Reilly book, Learning Python, 5th ed,
is 1600 pgs.  I coulda swore someone sed python is easy.  ;)
> nb

Python is easy, but its not simple.
Python is elegant, and full of art, but it has no paucity of constructs, 
types, and opportunities for confusion.

My goal for designing SimplyPy (for instance)is to present the beautiful 
heart of python (as Mark Summerfield calls it) and subsume the 
complexities of the fulness of python within a simple interface, BUT 
without limiting it.

Python is easy enough to teach children (I've done it), but its 
"complete and elegant enough" for the most scientific of professionals.

You do not need to know the fulness of python in order to use it. It is 
possible (even elegant) to use python (in a Rexx style) not at all 
recognized as "pythonized" code, and yet very very simple and powerful.

The beauty of python, in my view, is the flexibility and extensibility 
of the namespace with something more than the minimalist approach of 
Lisp, BUT with the elegance of the language called python.

Get Mark Summerfield's Programming Python 3.  Its really quite good, and 
in my opinion better that the O'Reilly book, especially for new users.

Just an opinion of course.

marcus