Python from Wise Guy's Viewpoint

[Joachim Durchholz]

james anderson wrote:

> Joachim Durchholz wrote:
> 
> how about formulating some examples in some language which is adequate to
> express them? perhaps somewhat more concretely than the allusions in your
> earlier message, in which you suggest some problem domains and some
> amorphously difficult decisions, but despite several rereadings, never
> concretly indicate what does not "work".
> 
> what does "different directions" mean? "glue code"? "asymmetry"? a "base
> class"? a "module"? an "orthogonal extension"?
> 
> what is the distinction between "dynamic dispatch" and "parametric polymorphism".
> 
> if not in the context of clos, then, well, in english.

Sorry - this would go beyond the scope of a newsgroup discussion. It 
would take me several hours to get this all sorted out, written down, 
and worded so that it's generally understandable.
And, frankly, I already have spent too much time on this thread.

I do intend to writ it all up and publish it on a WWW site - in my 
copious spare time... :-(

Let me assure you that all these nebulous terms are due to time 
constraints, not due to fuzzy reasoning.

Sorry if this all sounds like a lame excuse (actually it is).
And sorry to leave you with lots of fuzzy allusions and no concrete 
data. Others may be willing to fill in more details.

>>I'd really like to see a Lisp dialect that valued reliability over raw
>>expressive power. But I fear this isn't very high on the agenda of the
>>Lisp community. Besides, it would be difficult to do that - Lisp offers
>>no protection against peeking at internals and setting up all that
>>unsafe-but-powerful stuff.
> 
> what are "internals", what is "protection"?

No way to define an opaque type. AFAIK, modern Lisps allow user-defined 
types, but they offer no way to protect them against inspecting their 
internals. I'd prefer to have at least a grain of information hiding...

Regards,
Jo