«

In article <roy->,
Roy Smith <> wrote:
.
.
.
>trying new things too. 5 years ago, Pythonistas (was the term even
>invented then?) were crazy rebels. Today, they're the fashionable avant
.
.
.
Gordon McMillan, 1998 <URL:
http://groups.google.com/groups?fram...392ccc9b42f7cd >

My first guess was almost exactly a year earlier.
--

Cameron Laird <>
Business: http://www.Phaseit.net

"Skip Montanaro" <> wrote in message
news:mailman.25.1082997844.25742.python-...
>
> Peter> I guess it would be interesting to pose the question back to
them
> Peter> "If you could not use regexes in Perl, would you still like to
> Peter> program in it?" or "If you couldn't use mysql in PHP would you
> Peter> still use it?"
>
> Peter> What similar question, if any, would be a difficult one for us
> Peter> Python types?
>
> "If Python didn't support indentation-based block structure would you
still
> use it?"
>
>

I probably wouldn't have learned it - indentation based block
structure has been one of my "nice to have" things from at least
the middle '70s, so when I saw it in Python, I learned it to see how
it ran, and haven't looked back. However, it's not the reason I stay with
it.

John Roth
>
> Skip
>
>

Cameron Laird wrote:

> In article <c6jdsu$n1j$>,
> leeg <> wrote:
>>I use POSIX-ey stuff and interfaces to lumps of code written in
>>other languages, so Python could be Perl or Objective-C or C or Pascal or
>>anything as far as I care; I just happen to be able to write correct code
>>fairly quickly in Python. I hope that makes sense
> .
> So we're concluding that people use most languages because they
> must, to access some specific curd of functionality, but Python
> is different, and simply doesn't get in the way? How flattering!

Well, it doesn't get in the way for *coding*. It does for *running*; so
sometimes I code in Python then rewrite in C to run. But yeah, that's the
general idea
--
Graham Lee
I am leeg, for we are many
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?" -
Albert Einstein
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~wadh1342

Roy Smith wrote:
> What Tcl lacks in power and expressiveness, it
> makes up for in simplicity of use, quick learning curve, and ease of
> embedding/extending. I've written a lot of Tcl code, and never used
> either Expect or Tk.

That was how I originally came to Tcl. Never used Expect either (although
some colleagues did) and never did Tk (until Tkinter!)

Tcl does have power and expressiveness. It is one of the few languages
where you can trivially define your own control structures. Object
orientation was added without changing the language (almost SmallTalk
like).

Tcl also had a shot at stardom. I added it to the Mosaic browser where
it was used in a similar capacity to JavaScript today. Details are in
the proceedings of the 2nd WWW conference. (The audience were in awe
of a demo that printed an entire book based on following the rel links
in web page headers, got everything in the right order, loaded the pages
and printed).

To solve the same problems, Netscape invented yet another language and
put "marketing flavour of the day" in front, blessing us with Javascript.
I really wish Tcl had won that one.

Roger

Roy Smith wrote:
> 5 years from now, they'll be comfortably mainstream. 10 years
> from now, they'll be old-fashioned. And 20 years from now, they'll be
> dinosaurs. Don't let yourself become a dinosaur.

I suspect that, 20 years from now, there will still be
a language called Python, and it will still be quietly
and unobtrusively kicking all its competitors' backsides.

Whether it will bear any resemblance to the Python of
today is another matter...

--
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept,
University of Canterbury,
Christchurch, New Zealand
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg

Roger Binns wrote:
>
> Tcl also had a shot at stardom. I added it to the Mosaic browser where
> it was used in a similar capacity to JavaScript today. Details are in
> the proceedings of the 2nd WWW conference. (The audience were in awe
> of a demo that printed an entire book based on following the rel links
> in web page headers, got everything in the right order, loaded the pages
> and printed).

Python had a shot too:

http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/archives...94q3/1066.html

And I think Python has a claim to the first Web robot:

http://www.webhistory.org/www.lists/...93q1/0060.html

> To solve the same problems, Netscape invented yet another language and
> put "marketing flavour of the day" in front, blessing us with Javascript.
> I really wish Tcl had won that one.

I wish Python had won.

Paul

Paul Prescod wrote:
> And I think Python has a claim to the first Web robot:
>
> http://www.webhistory.org/www.lists/...93q1/0060.html

That's a fascinating little bit of history, especially this:

"I have written a robot that does this, except it doesn't check for valid
SGML -- it just tries to map out the entire web. I believe I found roughly
50 or 60 different sites..."

-Mike

Peter Hansen wrote:
> I guess it would be interesting to pose the question back to
> them "If you could not use regexes in Perl, would you still
> like to program in it?" or "If you couldn't use mysql in PHP
> would you still use it?"
>
> What similar question, if any, would be a difficult one for
> us Python types?

If you could not use block indentation in Python, would you
still like to program in it?

Mit freundlichen Gruessen,

Peter Maas

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Maas, M+R Infosysteme, D-52070 Aachen, Hubert-Wienen-Str. 24
Tel +49-241-93878-0 Fax +49-241-93878-20 eMail
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Peter Maas wrote:

> Peter Hansen wrote:
>
>> I guess it would be interesting to pose the question back to
>> them "If you could not use regexes in Perl, would you still
>> like to program in it?" or "If you couldn't use mysql in PHP
>> would you still use it?"
>>
>> What similar question, if any, would be a difficult one for
>> us Python types?
>
> If you could not use block indentation in Python, would you
> still like to program in it?

The way I indent my braces (the One True Way , I wouldn't
really mind, I suppose:

def install(name)
{
if os.path.exists(name)
{
path, ext = os.path.splitext(name)
if ext == '.zip'
{
try
{
x = Extractor(name)
path = os.path.join(x.extract(), path.replace('_', '.'))
}
finally
{
x.close()
}
}
else
{
path = name
}
}
}

-Peter

Greg> I suspect that, 20 years from now, there will still be a language
Greg> called Python, and it will still be quietly and unobtrusively
Greg> kicking all its competitors' backsides.

Greg> Whether it will bear any resemblance to the Python of today is
Greg> another matter...

Perhaps look back ten years to see what's happened since then. Does Python
more-or-less look the same as it did in 1994 (or even earlier)? I suspect
the answer is "yes". There has been some new syntax (*args/**kwds,
listcomps, complex numbers, raw strings, packages, assert statement, loss of
access statement) and a whole lot of new library functionality, but the core
language is pretty much the same.

Skip