The Evolution Of Python

[Ben C]

IMHO the reason why C has survived as a language and not become an
endangered species like Rexx, pascal et al is because it has it's own
'niche' ... initially evolving alongside of the unix environment it
has become the most suited language (currently) for systems
programming ... this has been both its strength and its weakness ...
to add more functionality it has had to fragment itself into other
competing 'species' and hence we now have C++ (and all its sub
species) ... C is analogous to the carnivore of the programming
languages ... yes fast and efficient ... but is also in a lot of
respects quite crude ...

I don't think Python has it's own true 'niche' ... it competes well
with many other languages ... hence it has to either keep evolving
into a 'better' competing language or find a niche or other languages
will inevitably supplant it ... what will happen to all your Python
code then? Will you invest the time learning and re-writing it to the
newer language? ...


Paul Prescod <paulp at ActiveState.com> wrote in message news:<mailman.996347633.4448.python-list at python.org>...
> James Logajan wrote:
> > 
> > ...
> > 
> > b.1\ Or K&R C (in which Python was written for a long time to maximize
> > portability) or ANSI C (which tried to maintain compatibility with K&R). A
> > case where stagnation helped lead to success.
> 
> I believe that the stagnation followed success. The same may happen to
> Python. If it is ever the "default programming language" then it will
> become essentially impossible to change in any reasonable time frame.
> Guido is trying to make the changes now because they won't be possible
> then.