[Python-Dev] Single-file Python executables (was: Computed Goto dispatch for Python 2)

[Paul Sokolovsky]

Hello,

On Fri, 29 May 2015 20:53:53 +1000
Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:

[ insightful statistics skipped ]

> I think there are some exciting and interesting languages coming up: 
> Swift, Julia, Go, Rust and others. 

Only those? Every one in a dozen university student comes up with an
exciting, interesting language - it has always been like that. Further
development and maintenance is what levels it below the common crowd.

> Why are we threatened by this?

Because at least some of them are backed by media companies, who use
them as leverage for their advertisement and PR campaigns. Obviously,
media companies already have great advertisement influence, and can
fool anybody's head with their tricks.

> Python makes a wonderful glue language. It would be great for Python
> to glue to more than just C and Fortran code. For scientific users,
> imagine being able to call Julia code from Python, and vice versa.

There "always" were things like integration of Python and Lua, etc.
Did somebody use them? No, they're of interest only to their authors. 

> Instead of thinking of Go as an opponent to beat, wouldn't it be
> great to be able to write extensions in a modern language like Go,
> Rust or D instead of creaky old C with all its safety issues?

Because very few people use Go, Rust, or D at all. And then they're
likely concentrated in a small niche. Going 2-level, using experimental
language L in an area A, where A is arbitrary/random, has almost zero
interest for majority of population. Let's wait till Rust becomes
real rust and talk again.

> -- 
> Steve


-- 
Best regards,
 Paul                          mailto:pmiscml at gmail.com