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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>OK, I don't mean to start any sort of war or
flaming or anything here but I really need to discuss this with other
afficionados of Python - I know none other than myself.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I'm a software developer. Where I work, the
dominant development language is Java with some mostly-legacy C/C++
software. In places where I don't need to directly integrate with
our Java suite of apps, the first thing I ask is, "do you mind if I do that
in Python?" in several cases I was given approval after demonstrating
stuff I've already done (These people giving approval are generally not very
technical).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Now, I've also shown my applications (both work
related and my own projects) to other developers at work.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Some of the applications I've written are quite
sophisticated. I have software which uses pymedia to playback media files
and Tkinter/Tix apps with quite-good (infact called "very professional looking"
by a few coworkers) GUIs. Apps that process thousands of records of data
in less than a second, and an application I developed which launches our suite
of Java applications (previously everything needed to be launched by hand with
lots of command-line parameters). Configurations (that specify which apps
and which command line parameters) can be created, edited, deleted, saved and
loaded. In addition, once the suite of applications is running, my
application continues to monitor all the processes (many of which don't have
GUIs). The application alerts the user if an app appears to start taking
over memory or %CPU (Our app suite is extremely large and complex) and allows a
user to selectively terminate apps. It's incredibly useful and I've gotten
nothing but complements on the app.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>But here's my problem, most of my coworkers, when
they see my apps and learn that they are written in Python ask questions like,
"Why would you write that in a scripting language?" Whenever I hear a
comment like that I can feel myself boiling inside. While many call Python
a scripting language, I acutally use it as a full-fledged programming
language. To me a scripting language is sort of like a shell language
where I may process output of one app, feed it into another, etc. That is,
a scripting language (by my definition) pulls apps together. I don't use
python like that (in fact, after my suite launching app I feel subprocess is
very immature). What's so different from python generating .pyc files and
executing them from javac producing .class files which you then run on
java?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I've been in the Python world since version 2.3
final was released, so I don't know a lot about the history of Python.
Was Python originally more like a scripting language and the "culture"
of refering to it as scripting has just stuck? I would like to
see the Python world get away from the "script" term,
perhaps starting in Python 3.x.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ron</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>