Boss wants me to program
Chinook
chinook.nr at tds.net
Wed Jun 29 10:39:31 EDT 2005
On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 08:11:43 -0400, phil wrote
(in article <42C28FFF.7010303 at anvilcom.com>):
>
> Comes down to preference. Isn't it absolutely amazing how many
> choices we have. Remember the 70's - Cobol, ASM, C, Basic.CICS(shudder)
>
And please, no eulogies (especially for CICS) - being reminded of them is bad
for my heart :~) I once did a engineering modeling system in IBM 1130
assembler that ran with overlays in 32K memory, because FORTRAN was too
hoggish. Input was the console keyboard and output was a CalComp plotter.
>
> Python reminds me more of Linux. Incredible no of packages,
> kinda disjointed, docs pretty bad, not integrated.
> But amazing stuff if you have the stomach for it.
> (seen pygame?)
> Maybe Python will get a daddy someday.
>
Seriously, having been involved in several (so called) high-level
productivity languages over the years on both IBM and HP (3000 series), I am
really enamored with Python (not to mention being on the user end :~).
However, as you say ("needs a daddy") it is still for the most part in
hackerdom evolution, and will not be a "mainstream" development platform
until a Sun/IBM/whatever takes it under-wing with that intention in an open
environment (the "suits" have to be convinced they can gain big time
otherwise). Can that happen in the Open-Source arena - I'm not convinced it
can because such is more akin to a staging ground at present.
And what would be really cool is that if the same thing happened with Linux -
it evolved to an elegant OS X like GUI without losing the intuitive
underbelly.
Just any "daddy" won't do though. The least beneficial would be the path of
DOS (sorry, I'm not a MS fan :~)). A major problem is that business thinking
(i.e. the "suits") is overly monopolistic to the point of
counter-productivity. Rather than an evolving open mainstream development
platform (i.e. technical productivity competition) and commercial products
emanating from such, the "suits" are focused on milking anything they can get
their hands on with only short-term bonuses in mind. I guess it all gets
down to human nature (or as Pogo said ...).
Enough, before I really get carried away.
Lee C
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