Python advocacy

[Neel Krishnaswami]

Paul Prescod <paul at prescod.net> wrote:
> Donn Cave wrote:
> > 
> > The idea that Python can or should replace these scripting languages
> > is equally dubious in my opinion.  Replace the UNIX shell with Python?
> 
> Not the interactive shell -- just the shell programming language.
> 
> actually, I rather wonder if there isn't some variation on the
> Python repl that could make it as convenient as any other shell and
> yet keep compatibility with the Python flow control feeatures....

IMO, you really need to start playing with some Smalltalk environments.
The idea of needing a separate shell language to access system libraries
is rather bizarre, especially when you consider how impoverished most 
shell languages' data structures are. IMO, it's a design decision well 
worth revisiting -- whenever I need to do anything much more complicated
than an 'ls', I turn to Emacs and Python. Buffers plus the richer data 
structures Python offers are just too much of a win over the plain
command line. 


Neel