Advice from Jeff (Was Re: Is there "let binding" in Python?)

[Don Bruder]

In article <mailman.1063592122.17998.python-list at python.org>,
 Jeff Epler <jepler at unpythonic.net> wrote:

<major snippage>

> Not an answer, but advice: when writing programs in Python, write Python
> programs.

Gawd, but that's profound! And on several levels... No... I'm serious. 
But I'm also smiling.  

>  If it's your task to translate some Scheme (or any other
> language) into Python as literally as possible, my heart goes out to you.

How miserable do you expect me to be translating from Python to C/C++ as 
literally as possible? Sounds like you think the Scheme guy has some 
serious heartbreak ahead. So far, with a good working knowledge of C, 
and picking up serious steam in C++ as I go, (Note 1) I'm trying to take 
a Python program to C/C++, with a preference for C++. So far, here at 
the very beginning of the start of the project, things *SEEM* to be 
going well. I've got several simple routines from one of the classes 
converted into pieces of a C++ class, and a few stub routines, and it 
compiles & runs. 

Note 1: 
Been trying to teach myself C++ for a while now, and doing this port is 
sorta my final exam in "Don learns C++ 101". Do I know enough to make it 
happen? I do? Great! I don't? Drat! Go RTFM some more to see what I've 
missed and correct the lack if I can figure out how. And if I can't 
figure it out that way, well... There's always consulting with the 
faculty and student body of Usenet University - Umpty-two-million 
experts in 14-gazillion fields can't *ALL* be wrong simultaneously.

I hope... :) 

On the way, I expect I'll pick up more than a little ability to read a 
Python program, even if I never manage to type in a single line of 
Python code. Not that learning to code in Python is a goal of this 
project of mine, but hey... you can't avoid getting some of the source 
language rubbed off on you when doing a port. Not if you want the port 
to work, anyway. 
Who knows... In the process of doing the port, I may begin to like 
Python enough to actually try to use it.

-- 
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