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Future of the Python Linux Distribution

Ivan Van Laningham ivanlan at home.com
Sun May 7 23:58:06 EDT 2000 
Hi All--

Michael Hudson wrote:
> 
> Glyph Lefkowitz <glyph at twistedmatrix.com> writes:
> 
> > Vetle Roeim <vetler at news.ifi.uio.no> writes:
> >
> > >  - age. the other "P" language[0] has been around a little longer.. right?
> >
> > I hear this tossed around a lot.  How *much* longer?
> 
> I think perl was born in 1987 and Python in 1991.  Not sure about
> either of those though.
> 

It came out at least as early as '86.

> [biggo snippo]
> > Unfortunately, one of the best features of the python community is
> > that it seems to have a sane group of people in it who know multiple
> > languages and will choose appropriate ones for the appropriate task.
> > We need more rabid, unabashed evangelists. :-)
> 
> Why?
> 
> [little-o snippo]
> > > [1]: I like Lisp, but it *does* have a PR-problem.
> >
> > Lisp *IS* a PR-problem.  Lisp needs to change its name and shed some
> > syntax before it's ever going to get 'mainstream' acceptance; the
> > ideas in lisp are good, but too many cs students have been tortured
> > with it ...
> 
> Lisp needs to *shed* some syntax?  What are you smoking?  Lisp has no
> discernable syntax (and that's arguably one of it's better features).
> Have you read "Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big" by Richard
> P. Gabriel?  It's well worth a read:
> 
>     http://www.naggum.no/worse-is-better.html
> 
> IMHO, Lisp has not entered the mainstream because people are too
> close-minded to realise that something can be both different from what
> they are used to and yet a good thing.  Not that modern lisp is
> perfect, but it's flaws aren't insurmountable given, say, one tenth of
> the money that's gone into Java.
> 

This may all be true, and I do agree that lisp is both different and
good, but nonetheless it can be beastly difficult to write clean code
and get it debugged.  Use Python and the barrier you have to overcome to
write unclean code is vastly higher.  In fact, I would go so far as to
say that if you write obfuscated Python code you're doing it on purpose
and have all the skills and talent to write perfectly clear code.

> Cheers,
> M.
> 
> --
>   it's not that perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language
>   rewards idiotic behavior in a  way that no other language or tool
>   has ever done                        -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp
> 

<no-no-ain't-no-evangelistas-here>-ly y'rs,
Ivan;-)
----------------------------------------------
Ivan Van Laningham
Axent, Inc.
http://www.pauahtun.org and
http://www.foretec.com/python/workshops/1998-11/proceedings.html
Army Signal Corps:  Cu Chi, Class of '70
Author:  Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours
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