Article of interest: Python pros/cons for the enterprise

[Jeff Schwab]

Terry Reedy wrote:
> "Jeff Schwab" <jeff at schwabcenter.com> wrote in message 
> news:f76dnYohFaXb0V3anZ2dnUVZ_u-unZ2d at comcast.com...
> [snip discussion of 'with' statements]
> 
> | Yes, this seems to be the Python way:  For each popular feature of some
> | other language, create a less flexible Python feature that achieves the
> | same effect in the most common cases (e.g. lambda to imitate function
> | literals, or recursive assignment to allow x = y = z).
> 
> This is a rather acute observation.  Another example is generators versus 
> full coroutines (or continuations).  Guido is content to capture 80% of the 
> practical use cases of a feature.  He never intended Python to be a 100% 
> replace-everything language.

I think the idea is to balance power on one hand, against complexity and 
potential confusion on the other.  One great thing about C is that a 
programmer can realistically hope to know the entire language 
definition; maybe Guido would like the same to be true of Python.