python simply not scaleable enough for google?

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Vincent Manis:
> On 2009-11-14, at 00:22, Alf P. Steinbach wrote, in response to my earlier post.
> 
>> Anyways, it's a good example of focusing on irrelevant and meaningless
>> precision plus at the same time utilizing imprecision, higgedly-piggedly
>> as it suits one's argument. Mixing hard precise logic with imprecise
>> concepts and confound e.g. universal quantification with existential
>> quantification, for best effect several times in the same sentence. Like
>> the old Very Hard Logic + imprecision adage: "we must do something. this
>> is something. ergo, we must do this".
>
> OK, now we've reached a total breakdown in communication, Alf. You appear
> to take exception to distinguishing between a language and its implementation.

Not at all.

But that doesn't mean that making that distinction is always meaningful.

It's not like "there exists a context where making the distinction is not 
meaningful" means that "in all contexts making the distinction is meaningful".

So considering that, my quoted comment about confounding universal 
quantification with existential quantification was spot on... :-)

In some contexts, such as here, it is meaningless and just misleading to add the 
extra precision of the distinction between language and implementation. 
Academically it's there. But it doesn't influence anything (see below).

Providing a counter example, a really fast Python implementation for the kind of 
processing mix that Google does, available for the relevant environments, would 
be relevant.

Bringing in the hypothethical possibility of a future existence of such an 
implementation is, OTOH., only hot air.

If someone were to apply the irrelevantly-precise kind of argument to that, then 
one could say that future hypotheticals don't have anything to do with what 
Python "is", today. Now, there's a fine word-splitting distinction... ;-)


> My academic work, before I became a computer science/software engineering
> instructor, was in programming language specification and implementation, 
> so I *DO* know what I'm talking about here. However, you and I apparently
> are speaking on different wavelengths.  

Granted that you haven't related incorrect facts, and I don't think anyone here 
has, IMO the conclusions and implied conclusions still don't follow.


Cheers & hth.,

- Alf