Python evolution: Unease

[Istvan Albert]

Iwan van der Kleyn wrote:

> And I do sense (reading planet python/this newsgroup) a mindset or at 
> least a tendency by the people who really matter in these discussion to 
> keep on adding features to the syntax; to add "structure" to Python. My 
> personal preference would be to leave the language alone for a while and 
> to improve its infrastructure.

In all honesty this:

http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=86641

scares me too.  Reminds me of Larry Wall's writings on Perl 6
that make me tune out fairly quickly. I don't have the kind of
problems that the these features will solve so I can't relate
to them at all.

But others might do. Especially when using python in an environment
where enforcing a strict contract is important. But if python
were to become overly complicated I'll find something else.
Three years ago I have not not used python at all, now I'm
using it for everything.

Languages should evolve with time, adapt to the needs
of its users. Sometimes that means that in some areas
it might feel worse. But it could also mean that the
problem is with us, so it would be unfair to spend effort
towards holding back this evolution just because
we don't need it.

Istvan.

PS. why can't decorators solve this optional type checking
problem? I clearly remember this as being one of the
selling points for having decorators in the first place...