Python's biggest compromises

Mel Wilson mwilson at the-wire.com
Fri Aug 1 10:38:17 EDT 2003


In article <bgd7ob$3r8$1 at slb2.atl.mindspring.net>,
"Andrew Dalke" <adalke at mindspring.com> wrote:
>Dennis Lee Bieber:
>>         Whereas BASIC started life as an interpreted language wherein
>every
>> statement had a line number, conditionals (IF) did jumps to line
>> numbers, and all variables were global (even across subroutine calls).
>
>Not interpreted.
>See http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?Dartmouth+BASIC
>]  Dartmouth BASIC
>] <language> The original BASIC language  [...] Unlike most later
>] BASIC dialects, Dartmouth BASIC was compiled
>
>or a more detailed description at http://www.kbasic.org/1/history.php3
>which says the first interpreted BASIC was the Micro-Soft one for
>the Altair.

   Hmm, OK.  Let's say then that Darmouth BASIC was designed
as a very lighweight compiler, for quick response.
'Designed for interaction' might cover it.  Lightweightness
would encoourage things like the 'LET' statment,
single-character (+ optional type-suffix) variable names.

   My catch-phrase lately is "Python is to C++ as BASIC was
to FORTRAN".  I should be careful who I use it around,
maybe.

        Regards.        Mel.




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