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"shell-commands" and python!

Martijn Faassen m.faassen at vet.uu.nl
Sat Sep 22 08:44:19 EDT 2001 
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams <ignacio at openservices.net> wrote:
> On 21 Sep 2001, Martijn Faassen wrote:

>> I don't think he was complaining at such. He was stating that he thought
>> Python could be less clunky and hoped someone would come up with ideas
>> on how, so they could discuss a possible improvement of the language.
>>
>> That does not mean necessarily it is possible to solve the perceived
>> shortcomings; the proposed solutions may not be desirable for other reasons
>> (obscuring matters, for instance). Python in this respect is more careful
>> to preserve internal coherence than Perl.
>>
>> But it does the language and the community no harm to discuss these issues.
>> Who knows, we may learn something. It is one way to improve your programming
>> language, too.

> Ease of redirection and backgrounding has not been a part of Python in the
> past, and we have to wonder whether adding those features is an actual
> improvement or just a nicety.

You can debate this, which is exactly what I said; the proposed solutions
may not be desirable; presumably 'just a nicety' is not an improvement 
in your book, and one would certainly not want to make the language worse.

> In my mind it's just a nicety. If my needs are better met by another tool, I
> have absolutely no qualms about using that tool.

Sure. That doesn't make anything I said less true; Python is one of my
favorite tools and I'd rather solve problems using Python than with some
other tool, because it is so nice. If I then find out that solving
parts of some problems is not so nice, I can look for ways to make
that easier. Idle intellectual pursuit perhaps, but no need to be
aggressive about it.

Regards,

Martijn
-- 
History of the 20th Century: WW1, WW2, WW3?
No, WWW -- Could we be going in the right direction?
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