Mastering Python

[John Nagle]

Alex Martelli wrote:
> Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>>need to catch up quickly and master Python programming.How do you
>>
>>Mastery and quickly are opposing terms <G> Took me 15 years on a job
>>using FORTRAN 77 and I still wouldn't have called myself a master. (I'm
>>more of a JoAT)
> 
> 
> My favorite "Stars!" PRT, mind you -- but when some language interests
> me enough, I do tend to "master" it... guess it's correlated with what
> Brooks saw as the ideal "language lawyer" in his "surgical team"
> approach, an intrinsic fascination with bunches of interconnected rules.

    Python just isn't that complicated.  The syntax is straightforward,
and the semantics are similar to most other dynamic object-oriented languages.
If you know Perl or Smalltalk or LISP or JavaScript, Python does about
what you'd expect.

	Execution model: dynamic stack-type interpreter.
	Memory model: reference counting with backup garbage collector.
	Syntax:	roughly C-like, with indentation for structure.
	Typing model: dynamic only
	Object model: class definitions with multiple inheritance.
	Object structure: dictionary hash.
	Exception model: explicit throw/try/catch
	Theading model: multiprogramming in interpreter.
	Safe memory model: Yes.
	Closures: Yes.
	Design by contract: No.

That's Python.

    Biggest headache is finding out what doesn't work in the libraries.

				John Nagle