Why not Python? (long)

[Cameron Laird]

In article <3AC762E7.478D7E81 at san.rr.com>, Darren New  <dnew at san.rr.com> wrote:
>Cris A Fugate wrote:
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>> 2. It uses a poor object architecture. If you really want to program
>> objects I would suggest Smalltalk or Ruby.
>
>Actually, I think the Python OO stuff is very close (semantically) to the
>Smalltalk OO. There are some things that are easier in Smalltalk, like
>metaclass manipulation, code frobbing, and stack frame munging, but I am
>pretty sure most things of that nature are do-able to some level in Python.
>
>What do you think are the primary differences?
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		[other apt points]
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Me, too.  I didn't find Cris description illuminating.

I agree that Python feels quite a bit like Smalltalk.
I used to be impatient with the former for the relative
difficulty of its introspection.  I now see this as a
deliberate stylistic decision.  Python's goal is to be
a language that's easy to learn, and easy for develop-
ment of correct applications, even when multi-person
teams are involved.  Programmers in those situations
shouldn't be introspecting and redefining metaprogram-
ming; at least, that's what I now agree most of the
week.  As Darren knows and accurately hints above,
Python *can* do these things, and lucidly.  They're
simply confined to the "wizardry" part of the language.
-- 

Cameron Laird <claird at NeoSoft.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html