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python development practices?

Peter Wang pzw1 at cor-no-spam-nell.edu
Tue Oct 30 19:45:08 EST 2001 
are there good references on using Python in a commercial, team
development environment?

i have been advocating and slowly convincing various people in my
company to use Python.  i've successfully used it to write a few tools
and an application.  however, the general perception is that it is a
good scripting language and possibly acceptable for single-person
development use, but it doesn't afford use in a large-scale software
team.  the lack of data hiding, the lack of data coverage tools
(pre-run-time linting), and the lack of interfaces and strong types
are the typical turn-offs, in addition to the minor but omnipresent
tab indentation issue. :-)

while i feel that Python makes me far more productive as a programmer
for all the projects on which i've worked, i'm inclined to agree that
the lack of data hiding coupled with lack of a standard interface
specification would cause problems in a team.

how do Python development teams get around these issues?  does using
Python in a commercial software team simply require more disciplined
programmers?

i'm eager to hear everyone's thoughts...

-peter
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