Java vs Python

[Tim Peters]

[John W. Baxter, on the "marketing" of C]
> Not much "marketing" as we know it.  However, giving Unix and C to
> universities infiltrated C into the thinking of a generation of CS
> grads (and not-quite-grads).  I was out of that environment long
> before then, so I wasn't infected...C looked pretty useless for a
> long time (and I still don't much like it).

In the early 80's, I was in a small group at Cray Research tasked with
picking a new implementation language more maintainable than raw Cray
assembler (yes, they were a bunch of crybabies <wink>).  After months of
study, we managed to beat down the insane member of the group (i.e., the one
who wanted to rewrite the OS and compilers in Fortran).  The rest of us
unanimously agreed that C was a bizarre experiment that would never spread
beyond academia, and that the future clearly belonged to Pascal.  The rest--
as they say --is history.

there's-a-reason-some-of-us-can't-rest-on-our-laurels-ly y'rs  - tim