Python article in Free Software Magazine

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 06:09:14 -0500, Dan Sommers wrote:

> On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 18:06:10 +1100,
> Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> wrote:
> 
>> I don't want to nit-pick all my way through the article, which is very
>> decent and is worth reading, but I will say one more thing: you
>> describe Python as "an expressive, interpreted language" ...
> 
> So does <http://www.python.org/doc/Summary.html>.

Then it is time it stopped.

In fairness, from a technical perspective, describing Python as
interpreted is not wrong -- as I've pointed out, machine code is
interpreted too -- but neither does it give the correct impression.
Many people have argued that the terms interpreted and compiled are no
longer meaningful in this day and age. I wouldn't go that far, but given
the negative connotations of "interpreted" I think it is both better and
more accurate to emphasis the fact that Python code is byte-code compiled
and only use the I-word when discussing Python's interactive environment
and eval/exec. If I could think of another word for interpreter, I would
use it even then.

People who are smart and care about correctness -- the "reality-based
community" -- often don't realise just how many decisions are made on the
basis of unfacts like "everybody knows interpreted languages are slow and
inefficient, that's what my professor told me when I did a semester of C
in 1982, we better stick to Java or .Net".



-- 
Steven.