[EuroPython] Re: [ez] EPC2003: Would you give us your experience for a talk?

[Andreas Kostyrka]

Am Don, 2003-04-24 um 11.34 schrieb Andrew Smart:


> I can not answer this question, since I haven't been working as a project
> manager for a Python based project.
Same here ;) 

> P.S.: Why I think that the switch to a different programming language should
> have an influence...:
> 
> Languages influence the way we think. With every (spoken) language comes
> a cultural and value-related context. If you are moving very much in such
> a context (using the language) the context influences the way you interpret
> and judge informations, which influences the way you communicate yourself.
> 
> >From my own personal experience I can say this also from programming
> languages.
> The way the programming language goes, the way I start to think if I use
> this
> language every day. And even the way you use the spoken language is sooner
> or
> later influenced by the structures of the programming language. Programming
> is
> building solutions, and you get used to a certain way to build solutions,
> regardless if they are virtual or real-life solutions. Depending on your
> real life, the personal structure and the way you grew up this effect may be
> stronger or weaker, or not existent at all.
> 
> If you follow a discussion between Unix system administrators, Oracle PL/SQL
> gurus and GUI visual basic developers you can see with a trained eye that
> there
> a big differences in thinking and the way solutions are approached. If you
> look at the way a everyday C++ OOP programmers approaches a discussion
> you'll
> see the design of abstract data structures while the programmer talks. Of
> course,
> not every programmer, not every time. But I'm sure there is a tendency
> (since
> I see this every day...). I would say there is a straight relation between
> lines
> of code and style of speech... :-) If I remember my old 6502 ASSEMBLER
> times...
> I must have been talking like a hacker... *grin*
> 
> So, since you solve problems in Python in a different way than, say, C++,
> a project which switches to Python should get a different style in
> discussing,
> problem solving and doing.
> 
> Is there a difference? You know the answer! Share it!
I share basically the same evalutation. But then I'm a confessing Python
fanatic.

Well, one start by pointing out what the biggest differences between
Python, C++ and Java are. IMHO, most people tend to overlook that, as an
example see the close association between Java and C++, which is not
based on the language semantics, but just pure syntactic sugar.
This DOES influences heavily what can be done with a language.

For example I'm doing at the moment some work on Adaption based software
design, and my ideas are basically not expressible in C++ (I did some
small benchmarks, to prove that the clever Python design can be faster
than the naive C++ solution. The clever solution is not really generally
doable in C++, because it does rely upon garbage-collection and weak
references). I'm not sure if this is something that Andrew is interested
for his talk. (It's not business oriented, it's more on the pushing
ideas stage at the moment)

Andreas