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What is python's language level?

Nick Maclaren nmm1 at cus.cam.ac.uk
Tue Apr 4 15:25:57 EDT 2000 
In article <seqG4.3372$HG1.98334 at nnrp1.uunet.ca>,
Warren Postma <embed at geocities.com> wrote:
>
>"Chuck Meyers" <chuck.meyers at lmco.com> wrote in message
>news:38EA1B8F.A797A130 at lmco.com...
>> Does anyone know python's language level? I did not find it in the list
>> at:
>
>Cheap guess; Perl is a 15, so we'll take the Perl number.

Well, considering that the whole thing smacks of a marketing
exercise, the level that you get may be what you pay for :-)

>Two things that make me laugh about this:

Only two?  I noticed three major factual errors and a host of known
lunatic classifications in just a quick glance.  Compare Algol 68,
Fortran 66, Basic and so on for a good giggle.

There was some serious work done in this area in the 1970s, and
the conclusions included the obvious one that a single level didn't
make a lot of sense.  If I remember correctly, other results
included:

    Higher is better if it doesn't stop you doing what you need to,
and is suited to the application domain.

    Very strong checking slows down time to the first demonstration
and speeds up time to the first stable version.

    Any language is bad if it is incomprehensible or too full of
"gotchas".

The expressions "motherhood and apple pie" and "so what else is
new?" spring to mind - though point 2 is very much out of fashion
at present, especially in the C and Java community.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
Email:  nmm1 at cam.ac.uk
Tel.:  +44 1223 334761    Fax:  +44 1223 334679
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