Boo who? (was Re: newbie question)

[Luis M. Gonzalez]

Istvan Albert wrote:
> All that boo does is borrows a few syntactical constructs
> from python. Calling it virtually identical
> is *very* misleading.

That's right. I wouldn't say it is *virtually identical* because Boo is
not Python (and this was clearly stated in its web site).  It is an
statically typed language while Python is dynamic, and it was designed
to run on the .NET  framework.
However, it's syntax is *very* similar, and I'm sure that any Python
aficionado would be able to learn it in a few minutes.

> I've downloaded and tried it when you first made this claim
> and it turned out that boo couldn't directly run even
> the simplest python programs

This is because Boo is not Python. It is very similar, but there are
some obvious differences.

> speed was slower than that of the corresponding python program.
> I think this entitles me to be irked by your post above.

You should consider that if you don't declare the types (as it is
supposed in any statically typed language) or if you don't understand
well how its type inference works, Boo would consider each variable as
type "object", therefore its execution speed would be similar to that
of a dynamic language.
I think that if you use Boo correctly, its performance would be as good
as any other .NET compliant language.

Anyway, Boo is still a work in progress and not ready for production
(although quite usable at its current state).

Finally, I want to say that although many people in this list may not
be interested in this language, I'm sure that there could be many
others that will find it very interesting.
(Especially those who are forced to work in a Microsoft centric
company).
In these cases, Boo is like programming in c# with a python-like
syntax.
As for the first ones, there's no reason to bash this project
gratuitelly. It is as important and "python related" as other projects
such as PyPy, Stackless, Prothon, etc...
I encourage everyone to give it a try, and if still you're not
convinced, well, you can ignore any thread that mentions it and go on
happily with your life...

regards,
Luis