Python 1.6 The balanced language

[Grant Griffin]

lobozc at my-deja.com wrote:
> 
...
> 3) My particular favourite is Icon (see www.cs.arizona.edu/icon).
> Particular aspects of some interest to Python would be goal-directed
> evaluation [saves helluva lot of lines of code...] and, less
> importantly, generators and coexpressions. I have no idea how difficult
> it would be to move these ideas to Python. But I (and many other
> people) can vouch that these mechanisms are very effective in writing
> very 'large' programs in a surprisingly small number of lines. I must
> stress here that this happens not the way Perl does it - but rather
> like in functional languages. That is: because of the built in
> mechanisms of evaluation. So it is readable :-), not just terse.

Speaking as an experienced programmer who has no idea what all that
schtuff is, I personally hope Python continues to do without it. 
Although Python isn't explicitly intended as a "learning language", I
think one of its great strengths is its status as "executable pseudo
code".  An experienced programmer can pretty-much "learn" Python in one
day, via Guido's tutorial.  (Of course, like any complex system, Python
might still take years to "master".)  To the extent that very powerful,
very elegant constructs creep into the language (which--remember--is
only now getting augmented assignment operators!), Python will become
harder to learn and to read.

Python has never placed any value on terseness (as far as I can tell). 
This is a necessary result of one of Tim's most essential "Python
Philosophy" points: "There should be one--and prefereably only
one--obvious way to do it."

minimalism-of-code-comes-at-the-expense-of-maximalism-of-constructs;
   -this-is-the-fundamental-pathogen-of-Perl-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
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