What is Python?

[Grant Griffin]

Peter Hansen wrote:
> 
...
> :), have competition in the form of much less consistent (I'm being
> polite) languages (Perl and English) which make a point of having ten
> different ways to say any particular thing while still remaining
> exceptionally difficult even for fairly experienced "speakers".  (Are
> there any native Perl speakers?  Hmm... :)
...

Interesting stuff throughout!

But regarding the point above, I guess I would defend English (and other
languages spoken by "natives" <wink>) as carrying subtle shades of
meaning within the 10 (ten, decade, half-score, nearly-dozen) ways to
say something.  A computer language, OTHO, is merely redundant whenever
it provides ten ways to say anything, because everything in a
programming language is explicit (or at least _supposed_ to be <wink>.)

We native English speakers have grown to love its idiosyncrasies for
their charm.  However, when I first learned to read, I was very
frustrated with the non-uniformity of its spelling.  (In fact, I had to
chuckle a little when I first heard a few years ago that the Germans
thought their already-highly-logical spelling needed "reform".)  So in
that vein, I guess learning to _read_ English gives the native English
speaker a bit of a taste for what its like to learn to _speak_ it.

what-was-the-question?-<wink>-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
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Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
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