Integrate Python in a C/C++ application

[Scott David Daniels]

For me, one of the big attractions of Python was not only its
extendability (key), but the wonderful possibility that it did
not need to be "on top."  Smalltalk is a very nice language,
but it needs to be in charge.  In fact, many languages are fairly
nice to use, but insist that you work within their rules and
under their model of memory, I/O, strings, ....  Even C++ is
fairly cranky in this way.

C and Python both are happy helping a programmer who writes (or
has problems) in other languages.  You can use Python to explore
or extend a large existing system without forcing the system
into Python's view of the world.  I feel it would be a great
loss to drop this ability.  Starting _in_ python is a great idea,
but starting _with_ Python may be all you can afford to do.

I suspect that one of the reason that Python attracts such a
large set of overly skilled programmers is that Python does
not claim to be _the_ solution, only a very good solution.

Languages that want to control the machine and dole out access
to its facilities in bits and pieces stimulate my "snake-oil"
detector.  They seem to be saying, "do it my way and you'll
never have problems." Hmm, with my use of Python, I've never
smelled snake-oil, ... better get my nose checked.

Python, the agile programming language that plays well with others.

-Scott David Daniels
Scott.Daniels at Acm.Org