[Python-Dev] Parrot -- should life imitate satire?

[Guido van Rossum]

> On Tue, 31 Jul 2001, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> > Things Python would bring to this party: our serious-cool GC, our
> > C extension/embedding system (*much* nicer than XS).  Things Perl would
> > bring: blazingly fast regexps, taint, flexitypes, references.
> 
> I don't really understand the motivation.  Do we want any of those things?
> 
> Are our current regexps not good enough?
> What are flexitypes, and why would we really want them?
> Don't we already have references?
> 
> Taint might be worth something, and i would see the regexp engine as
> incrementally better perhaps, but that doesn't seem enough to justify
> a massive re-engineering of both languages.

Python won't be reengineered.  If the Perl VM happens to be able to
retargetable for Python, maybe some synergy might happen (like
reusable C extensions).  But I don't see Python making any compromises
in its semantic model, and the new VM would only be used for something
like Python 3.0 (or more likely 4.0) if it really offers significant
advantages.  Dan's recent contributions make me a lot less optimistic.
Don't ask me to explain -- I don't have the time, sorry.  The other
participants in the thread are doing a good job.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)