When will Java go mainstream like Python?

[Paul Rubin]

"sjdevnull at yahoo.com" <sjdevnull at yahoo.com> writes:
> IMO, Python would be well-served by making the ref-counting semantics it
> currently has a guaranteed part of the language spec...
> I could be convinced otherwise, but I _think_ that that change would
> offer an alternative to all of the interesting cases of where the
> "with" statement is "useful".

The whole point of introducing the "with" statement was help cleanly get
rid of the ugly and unsound reliance on refcounting semantics found in
so much python code.  Your proposal is aimed in the wrong direction.