Choosing a programming language as a competitive tool

[Alessandro Bottoni]

This discussion thread is becoming more and more interesting... how about
establishing www.western_company_simulation.org for writing down a complete
software (Python, of course) simulation of the average western company and
study those economical effects with scientific precision? It could even have
a market... (sorry Alex: I just could not resist.. ;-)

Put aside the jokes...

While Lisp, Prolog, Simula, C++ have ALL their important advantages and
unique features, it seems to me that the more relevant evolution in
programming language since assembler is not in language expressiveness
(that, after all, is the same for every one), but in their "user
friendliness", with "user" meaning "programmer" in this case.

It can seems a little strange to have a concern about "user friendliness"
when talking about programming language, but:
1) We all have less and less time to devote to new languages/technologies,
even when they are related to our work
2) Frankly, after the 12ve or 13th time, we all start being a little tired
of learning new languages (even not imperative ones..)
3) We are forced to write code with just the left part of the brain, the
right part being busy in filtering out our managers noise
4) We are continuosly re-writing years-old pieces of code, of course without
source comments and docs

All that we need is just a simple, relaxing, programming language that can
"get the job done" and does not require any extra-effort to be managed. From
this point of view, Python is one of the most advanced languages I can see
around. Just Java and C# can compare to it in some way.* Many application
that you can see at python.org and parnassus' clearly demonstrate that it
has no significant limitations for the day-to-day work. Why should we
consider anything else? Just a specific request to produce compiled software
can keep me from using it.

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Alessandro Bottoni
Quadrante SRL
Piazza Galileo, 6
40123 Bologna
abottoni at quadrante.com
http://www.quadrante.com

I speak for myself and they return the favor

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* My God! I mentioned IT again!