PEP scepticism

[Steve Horne]

On 28 Jun 2001 17:49:35 -0400, Andrew Kuchling
<akuchlin at mems-exchange.org> wrote:

>Roman Suzi <rnd at onego.ru> writes:
>> I think improving Python itself is also improving what you've
>> just mentioned.
>
>No it isn't.

It might make some libraries easier and quicker to write, and perhaps
even less prone to bugs. Though of course there is a balance to be
maintained.

Perhaps I should confess to being biassed. I rarely use more than the
basic string and file handling libraries - you know, doing scripting
and glue style things. I'll bet that describes a lot of what Python is
used for.

Python (or rather Jython) is no doubt extremely useful in combination
with Java - but I'm not sure there's any value to trying to compete
directly with Java. Sometimes I think that the drive to proove that
Python can do anything that other languages can do misses an essential
point - Python is extremely good (and getting better) at scripting and
glue style tasks. That is where its main strength lies. Being good at
everything is a pretty tall order.

-- 
Steve Horne
Home : steve at lurking.demon.co.uk
Work : sh at ttsoftware.co.uk