«

Eric Pederson wrote:

[snip yet another article repeating what's been said over and over again
for years]

> Is it wrong to appreciate Python as a language, but want to have the nice accoutrements we see in some competing languages?

No it's not wrong to want these things. The problem is that we're not
lacking in people posting this *same exact complaint* every month or so.
We *are* lacking in people implementing these things.

If you want to see these nice accoutrements, *stop posting here and get
to work*! These threads never, ever bring anything new or interesting to
the table, they don't build any consensus, and they certainly don't get
any code written.

--
Robert Kern


"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
-- Richard Harter

Robert Kern <> writes:
> No it's not wrong to want these things. The problem is that we're not
> lacking in people posting this *same exact complaint* every month or
> so. We *are* lacking in people implementing these things.

Eh? Nah, we keep getting lame excuses on why those things aren't
needed and users should just supply tenacity and expect to suffer and
they should stop being wimps, and having to locate, download, and
figure out how to use a dozen packages from all over the internet
really isn't more hassle than a one-click install with unified
documentation for everything.

> If you want to see these nice accoutrements, *stop posting here and
> get to work*!

Eh again--says who? You? Most of those functions for Python are
already floating around the net. It's simply a matter in many cases
of deciding to include them in the distro. The problem is an attitude
that making things too easy for users is un-Pythonic. If you think
it's just a matter of writing code, you're not on the side you think
you're on.

Paul Rubin wrote:
> Robert Kern <> writes:
>
>>No it's not wrong to want these things. The problem is that we're not
>>lacking in people posting this *same exact complaint* every month or
>>so. We *are* lacking in people implementing these things.
>
> Eh? Nah, we keep getting lame excuses on why those things aren't
> needed and users should just supply tenacity and expect to suffer and
> they should stop being wimps, and having to locate, download, and
> figure out how to use a dozen packages from all over the internet
> really isn't more hassle than a one-click install with unified
> documentation for everything.

*I'm* not giving those excuses. I'm doing the work to assist in my area
of interest.

http://download.enthought.com/MacEnthon/ReadMe.html

>>If you want to see these nice accoutrements, *stop posting here and
>>get to work*!
>
> Eh again--says who? You?

Yes, me. I've been doing the legwork.

> Most of those functions for Python are
> already floating around the net. It's simply a matter in many cases
> of deciding to include them in the distro. The problem is an attitude
> that making things too easy for users is un-Pythonic. If you think
> it's just a matter of writing code, you're not on the side you think
> you're on.

I said nothing about writing code except as part of a list of several
things that this thread won't accomplish. I certainly don't think that
it *just* involves writing code.

--
Robert Kern


"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
-- Richard Harter

Paul Rubin <http://> writes:

> Eh? Nah, we keep getting lame excuses on why those things aren't
> needed and users should just supply tenacity and expect to suffer and
> they should stop being wimps, and having to locate, download, and
> figure out how to use a dozen packages from all over the internet
> really isn't more hassle than a one-click install with unified
> documentation for everything.

I don't see why the things you talk about would have to be part of the
main Python distribution. Ruby on Rails seems to do pretty well without
being included with the core language.

There's already a pretty successful programming framework for Python
(Zope), and I don't see why people wouldn't be able to put something
like that together to compete on more equal terms with Ruby on Rails, or
Delphi, &c.

If you want the whole of the Python community to start developing stuff
for one particular GUI toolkit, I think you'll have much more success by
just making a really good GUI toolkit, than trying to force people to
use it by standardising it. (Which I think is shown by the proliferation
of GUI toolkits other than Tkinter.)

In short, when you have your one-click-install Pythonic IDE
extravaganza, I'm sure people will download it, whether or not they can
do it on python.org.

--
Björn Lindström <>
Student of computational linguistics, Uppsala University, Sweden

(Björn Lindström) writes:
> I don't see why the things you talk about would have to be part of the
> main Python distribution. Ruby on Rails seems to do pretty well without
> being included with the core language.

I haven't used Ruby on Rails but from the description I saw, its distro
includes everything needed, which I assume includes Ruby itself.

> There's already a pretty successful programming framework for Python
> (Zope), and I don't see why people wouldn't be able to put something
> like that together to compete on more equal terms with Ruby on Rails, or
> Delphi, &c.

I have the impression that Zope is ungodly complex, and revolves around
a weird and nonstandard database instead of having an SQL interface.

> If you want the whole of the Python community to start developing stuff
> for one particular GUI toolkit, I think you'll have much more success by
> just making a really good GUI toolkit, than trying to force people to
> use it by standardising it. (Which I think is shown by the proliferation
> of GUI toolkits other than Tkinter.)

Actually that proliferation is one of the culprits in Python being a
pain to deal with. I'm personally not a GUI fetishist and Tkinter has
been good enough for the client-side GUI's I've needed to write (I'm
more web-oriented most of the time). But the reason for that
proliferation is other people are dissatisfied with Tkinter. That
by itself says the stdlib is lacking.

> In short, when you have your one-click-install Pythonic IDE
> extravaganza, I'm sure people will download it, whether or not they can
> do it on python.org.

There's already a Python IDE (Idle) included with the Python distro;
its problem is that its limited in functionality and it's buggy.

Anyway, I'm a Python user, not an evangelist. As a user I'm happy to
have Python and am thankful to its authors, even though (like anything
else) it's a long way from being perfect. But I do get annoyed by
evangelists who make unsupportable claims that the product doesn't
live up to.

Paul Rubin <http://> writes:

> (Björn Lindström) writes:
>> I don't see why the things you talk about would have to be part of the
>> main Python distribution. Ruby on Rails seems to do pretty well without
>> being included with the core language.
>
> I haven't used Ruby on Rails but from the description I saw, its distro
> includes everything needed, which I assume includes Ruby itself.

Hm... did you read my posting before you answered? That's exactly the
kind of distro I suggested that you would make. Ruby on Rails is not
Ruby itself, you know.

>> There's already a pretty successful programming framework for Python
>> (Zope), and I don't see why people wouldn't be able to put something
>> like that together to compete on more equal terms with Ruby on Rails, or
>> Delphi, &c.
>
> I have the impression that Zope is ungodly complex, and revolves around
> a weird and nonstandard database instead of having an SQL interface.

That's why you would put something together "to compete on more equal
terms with Ruby on Rails".

> Anyway, I'm a Python user, not an evangelist. As a user I'm happy to
> have Python and am thankful to its authors, even though (like anything
> else) it's a long way from being perfect. But I do get annoyed by
> evangelists who make unsupportable claims that the product doesn't
> live up to.

I made no such claims. Again, did you actually read my posting?

--
Björn Lindström <>
Student of computational linguistics, Uppsala University, Sweden

Paul Rubin:

> I haven't used Ruby on Rails but from the description I saw, its distro
> includes everything needed, which I assume includes Ruby itself.

Whatever led you to assume that?

* Install Ruby
* Install RubyGems
* Invoke gem to install rails

http://download.rubyonrails.com/

Neil

On 07 Aug 2005 02:42:43 -0700, Paul Rubin
<"http://phr.cx"@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> (Björn Lindström) writes:
> > I don't see why the things you talk about would have to be part of the
> > main Python distribution. Ruby on Rails seems to do pretty well without
> > being included with the core language.
>
> I haven't used Ruby on Rails but from the description I saw, its distro
> includes everything needed, which I assume includes Ruby itself.

Here you go again: making pronouncements without actually knowing what
you are talking about. Just a few days ago you were trashing products
like Dabo, because they use things that aren't in the standard
distribution, and now you're approving of something like Rails because
it has a Windows package that installs everything you need, including
Ruby. Yet Dabo has had exactly the same thing for quite some time now
on Windows: a standard Windows installer that gives you Python,
wxPython, MySQLdb, kinterbasdb, etc., but you spent countless messages
trashing Dabo and anyone who would consider using something like it,
because it "wasn't in the standard distribution".

> I have the impression that Zope is ungodly complex, and revolves around
> a weird and nonstandard database instead of having an SQL interface.

Wow, and I have the impression that you form opinions before you
actually experience something. Isn't there a word for such a person?
Hmmm.....
--

# p.d.

Peter Decker <> writes:
> Hmmm.....

Plonk.

(Björn Lindström) writes:
> > I haven't used Ruby on Rails but from the description I saw, its distro
> > includes everything needed, which I assume includes Ruby itself.
>
> Hm... did you read my posting before you answered? That's exactly the
> kind of distro I suggested that you would make. Ruby on Rails is not
> Ruby itself, you know.

I'm going by another post earlier up. I'm not sure if it was from
you. The distro in question was the Ruby on Rails distro. The person
said he downloaded and installed it and it did everything in one
click. That would imply that it included the Ruby language. Nothing
stops the Ruby on Rails packagers from making the Ruby on Rails distro
a superset of the Ruby distro, after all.

> > I have the impression that Zope is ungodly complex, and revolves around
> > a weird and nonstandard database instead of having an SQL interface.
>
> That's why you would put something together "to compete on more equal
> terms with Ruby on Rails".

Yes, it sounds like we agree that Zope isn't the answer. There's
probably Python code around that does similar stuff to most of what
RoR does, though it might be that RoR uses Ruby language features to
do some things more conveniently than Python can.

> > Anyway, I'm a Python user, not an evangelist. As a user I'm happy
> > to have Python and am thankful to its authors, even though (like
> > anything else) it's a long way from being perfect. But I do get
> > annoyed by evangelists who make unsupportable claims that the
> > product doesn't live up to.
>
> I made no such claims. Again, did you actually read my posting?

Your claims are not the ones I have such trouble with.