Could Python supplant Java?

[Dan Johnson]

"goose" <spammenotguse at hobbiton.org> wrote in message
news:3D640BCE.4090201 at hobbiton.org...
> Dan Johnson wrote:
> <snip>
> > Serious question:
> >
> > What is so developer-hostile about Windows?
>
> Serious Answer(tm):
> 1. No development tools come installed with it. Without
> even a single compiler, how does a "developer" develop ?
> The result is usually to download/purchase a development
> tool.

That is so. But it doesn't seem like a very serious
objection.

Perhaps it does not cater to developers in quite the way
Linux does. But "developer hostile"?

> 2. No proper scripting environment to do nightly
> build & test cycles (cron'd to run at midnight).
> (IDE's are nice if you're gonna sit at your desk and click
> on the buttons, but on a 20 person project, I want to be
> able to get everyone to save their work to a server, and
> have *everything* recompiled from scratch, so that if
> anyone made a change that broke someone else component, we'd
> find out the next morning, not six weeks later when we are
> trying to integrate our code together).

I wonder what you mean by "proper". There's a lot of
stuff available for windows in this area, and some of
it comes with Windows even.

I suspect that the tools you find proper are things like
bash, and they don't come with Windows. But some
scripting tools do (no, not just BAT files) and others
are available.

(On the other hand, what you want to do above is
really pretty trivial, and .BAT files could handle it,
crude though they are.)

> The lack of a system
> provided make utility is depressing.

Make utilities are available, if that's how you want work,
though it's a little behind the times.

But no, it's not included with the OS.

> 3. The inability to easily let everyone use *the* *same* *machine*
> to compile, all at the same time (via an ssh shell, or an xterm
> if the developer likes GUI IDE's). This way it is possible to make
> sure that no developer is using a compiler which could possibly
> be patched to a different version than the others (autoupdate?).

You can do this with terminal services, but it seems like
a very strange objection. The ability to do this does not
ensure that every developer has his compiler patched in
exactly the same way, after all. Though I suppose you
could just refuse to let anyone install a compiler on
their own machine.

> 4. The lack of a single decent editor ... 'nuff said.

You no like emacs? :D

> Basicly, after you jump the flaming hoops to install your OS,
> it is frustrating to sit in front of it without being able to
> write a single line of code because the OS assumes that the
> person using it is not a developer. No other system that I've
> installed has this "feature" ... the first thing I do after an
> installation is run 'cc -v' ... and everthing from linux to
> sco to solaris to iris allows me to start writing code.

This does seem to be the heart of your objection. It just
doesn't seem all that serious to me.

> Windows lets me play solitaire :-(

Hey! You can play pinball too! :D

> > Are you sure it isn't really Microsoft you find.. hostile? :D
>
> no, I can stand solitaire for a few minutes while my
> development tools load :-)

Oh, well then. :D