On Wed, Aug 22, 2001 at 11:44:36AM -0700, David Ascher wrote:
which would automatically translate 95% of Perl5 code to Perl6: "If we're smart enough to write Perl5, we can do this". I think it glosses
<snicker> "We let our code base deteroriate into an incomprehensible mess of code, and damn it, we can do it again!"
libraries as distinct from the core. In Pythonia, there is too much emphasis among the elite (us =) on adding features to the core as opposed to library modules, IMO. Related is the fact that much 'cutting-edge' work in Perl is written in Perl, while most of the cutting edge stuff in Pythonia is done in C. Some of that relates to
*Yes*. That's mostly why I've been drifting away from python-dev, too; the core is becoming more and more dull, the new features are more and more esoteric, and the more interesting action is in Python-based applications and libraries. As a bonus, if I work on a standalone package, I don't need to worry if a change is going to screw up the X thousands of Python users; only the much smaller pool of users of the package is at risk, and it's easier to decide to break things or provide backwards compatibility.
new keywords, for example. Still, there is room for exploration and prototyping there which we don't have such easy access to.
Tools/compiler lets you try out language modifications, though, so it's equally possible to do that with Python (witness PTL). We just don't do that very much, that's all. --amk