Python Evangelism

[John Pote]

"Steve Holden" <steve at holdenweb.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.2940.1141897905.27775.python-list at python.org...

This thread was great entertainment at the end of today reading down the 
screen with a beer going down on the side. Here's my penny's worth:

Over this side of the pond the good old British Post Office changed its name 
to 'Consignia' in 2001. After a year and a bit they chucked the fancy new 
name for the old one - 'Post Office'.  Although I scan the trade rags I 
missed the editorial announcing hp re-branding some of its products (test 
and measurement) Agilent and it confused me for some time as I saw Agilent 
products advertised that looked just like hp ones. (And I still think of my 
"Agilent" oscilloscope as an 'hp', this probably reflects my middle years!)

As no one in this thread has said why Python is so good here's my reasons.

The text
    print "hello world"
stuck in a file and executed actually works and does exactly what it says on 
the tin - great for knocking up simple procedural scripts. On the other hand 
there's lots of freely available modules in the standard lib and 'out there' 
for doing full blown OO programming for complex multi-threaded apps. (I'm 
currently looking at Twisted for a distributed internet app - looks good so 
far)

wxPython + Glade I'm finding is a good combination for putting together 
Python + GUI apps.

No compile then link (while I go and make a coffee, stare out the window . . 
. ) stage, write once run anywhere.

what's in a name? fortran, algol, rexx, hope, haskell, pascal, modula, 
eiffel, B, C, J, tcl, pearl, ruby, rebol, cobol, basic, vb, .net, assembler, 
forth, snobol, ada, prolog, simula, smalltalk, oberon, dylan, bob, ML et al 
ad nauseum.
 - is Python any less meaningful? Anyway I LIKE the chesse shop sketch!

active news group that's always been helpful

One language does full blown apps and simple desktop scripts.

It's more readable than other languages I've looked at.

>
> Any suggestions for improvement?
>

Well yes,
mainly documentation - especially exceptions. The principle of exceptions is 
described well in the reference manual and standard books. What I mean is 
the ref manual often buries exception details in the text description and 
gives only outline detail of the exception's cause(s) and details of the 
exception object. Some lib modules do state that other exceptions may be 
thrown but unless they are listed how can robust programmes be written? The 
httplib does list the HTTPException based exceptions but there is no mention 
of the 'socket' exceptions that can be thrown. This leaves the programmer 
with using a catch all (frowned upon) or scanning through hundreds/thousands 
of lines of code in possibly deeply nested modules.

The beer's run out so I'll stop here.

keep at it everyone, best regards,

John Pote