[Tutor] Tutor Digest, Vol 31, Issue 23 - some jobs are just too big for Python

[Alan Gauld]

"Klaus Ramelow" <klaus.ramelow at GMX.de> wrote
> My programming experience (beginning at the card-reader aera)
> main-frame, mini and micro :
> Bit / Byte / Word system-programming via switch-console followed by
> Assembler and commercial
> software using Basic, Cobol, Pascal and SQL.

I go back to a similar era but not on mainframes, I cut my teath
on DEC PDP10 and Data General Midi computers

> Mnemonic programming-language - in my understanding - can only be
> consisting of expressions near the human language.

Yes, but the human language can be mathematics :-)
Thus Fortran and PL/1 are not much like English but are
mnemonic in form to their users.

> The best example for writing non-system-programms are
> Basic and SQL.

Interesting choice, I'd have probably included COBOL there too.

> Why should I waste time in learning a "language" like Java (or more
> positive: python) ?

Two different questions.
Java is a replacement for C++ and tries to be a portable systems
language. It has libraries to tackle a lot of fairly low level tasks 
and
is often used where C++B would have been. It offers few advantages
over C++ (garbage collection mainly) and has several disadvantages,
(speed, no operator overloading etc) but delivers(nearly) the promise
of portability.

Python is a different kind of language, much close to languages
like Perl and Tcl. It is a higher level language in that it requires
far fewer lines of code to achieve the same functional;itry
- 3-10 times compared to C++ or Java and 3-5 times
compared to BASIC in my experience, even compared to
modern BASICs like Visual Basic. Pythpon excels in building
applications quickly, even if you might have to rewrite some
parts in a loewr level language like C++/Java later. Python, is
also much easier to learn so plays an important role as a
training language - compare it to Logo rather than Pascal in
that regard!

SQL stands alone as a data access language. It is in no way a
general purpose language but it is the de-facto data access
mechanism, even in Python..

> Nevertheless this Tutor Digest is most helpful, the number of 
> questions
> / problem show some more people are looking for a mnemonic-language
> which should cross-compile to something with 
> multiplatform-capability
> like Java.

I don't know how many people consider Pythons cross platform
capability to be that high on their list. I certainly don;t. And 
although
Python does compile under the covers I never really think of it as
compiled. I just like it as a language which lets me build stuff 
quickly
with minimum thought about the language itself and maximum
thought about the problem and solution.

> Please let me know, if I am entirely wrong.

you are not completely wrong but you may be focused on only
one aspect of a multi faceted picture.

IMHO of course :-)


-- 
Alan Gauld
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld