[Chicago] Chicago Python User Group: Thurs. July 13, 2006 7pm.

[Michael Tobis]

Please don't take the language wars too seriously. When I say
something like "Perl is wierd" I *don't* mean anything like "anybody
who uses Perl is beneath contempt"; I just mean some of the tradeoffs
Larry makes seem peculiar to me. I had a Perl 5 job once, and I was
not any more contemptible then than I am now. (Just a little wierder,
perhaps.)

I think Perl 6 is a fine topic for ChiPy. I think Microsoft QBASIC
under DOS 2.0 is a fine topic. I think Logo is a fine topic (and is
likely to come up).

But as a Python group, we have two things in common already: 1) we
think computer langages are important and 2) we know some Python. It's
the common denominator. If I were presenting FORTRAN 95 to the JUG, I
would be saying "this bit is different than in Java", and "this bit is
somewhat better than in Java" and "this part is ridiculously worse
than in Java". Especially the last part.

So Brian has a point. I think as a group we will be mentally comparing
Perl 6 with Python 2.x. I don't think Chris needs to do that
explicitly but on the other hand I don't want the question to be off
limits.

I will be disappointed if Chris doesn't present, but on the other hand
I will be thinking about the other languages I know when he does. And
everyone in the room speaks Python. So I hope nobody will take offense
if someone says "that is different in language P from how it is in
language P Prime".

I also think permission to flame other languages in good humor is part
of having a language group, though. I hope nobody takes it too
seriously.

How about if we aim for a quarterly or semi-annual dynamic languages
meetup where we bury the hatchet? Joint Perl/Ruby/Python/PHP meetings?
Obvious topics include SQL and DOM and AJAX, for instance. Also,
wouldn't it be nice if these languages could interoperate? Then we
wouldn't have to invent everything four times.

mt