What other languages use the same data model as Python?

[Hans Georg Schaathun]

On Wed, 04 May 2011 16:49:25 -0500, harrismh777
  <harrismh777 at charter.net> wrote:
:  Folks seem to think that because they are doing abstraction at a 
:  high-level (well, they never maybe programmed at a lower level) that 
:  abstraction somehow 'requires' a high level language.  (not true)

I never said 'requires', but when you do high-level modelling,
low-level detail is a distraction.  Using a low-level language
for abstract modelling is therefore harder than it needs to be.

:  Today, high-level languages like Python (and others) allow programmers 
:  to place some of their abstraction into their source code directly. This 
:  does not make the high-level language any more 'suited' to abstraction 
:  than any other lower-level language; because the abstraction is a mental 
:  process not a language feature. It all ends up in assembly and machine 
:  code.

Indeed, except for the contradiction.  The fact that you can 
put more of your abstraction into the source code means that it is
better suited to abstraction.

Mental processes depend on language; at least when you need to
communicate the output.  That language does not have to be
computer readable (as is the case for your float charts etc).
We may very well use a stack of languages and models at different
levels of abstraction, but when you move down the stack you are
moving away from abstraction and into implementation.

C is very rarely suitable at the top of this stack.  When I say that
C is ill-suited for abstraction, I am not implying that it is ill-suited
for implementing according to an abstract model.  If you need human
input in the lower layers of abstraction, C is a good choice. 

Using manual work to move down the layers of abstraction is possible,
and given sufficient man-power should give the better result, but
relying on human input when the work can be automated is ridiculously
expensive.

Now, python is only one level above C in abstraction, but that's a 
different matter.

-- 
:-- Hans Georg