[Tutor] Pythonic way

[Alan Gauld]

On 20/11/2018 22:35, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 08:22:01PM +0000, Alan Gauld via Tutor wrote:
> 
>> I think that's a very deliberate feature of Python going back
>> to its original purpose of being a teaching language that
>> can be used beyond the classroom.
> 
> I don't think that is correct -- everything I've read is that Guido 
> designed Python as a scripting language for use in the "Amoeba" 
> operating system.

I think both are true. Guido was working on Amoeba at the time
he built Python so it was an obvious choice of platform, although
he first built it on a Mac. But he didn't set out specifically to
build a scripting language for Amoeba but rather to build "a descendant
of ABC" which was also usable in the real world, specifically The C/Unix
world.

To do that he believed it had to address the major barriers to ABC
which were 1)being capable of being extended and 2) improved I/O.

My source for that conclusion is Guido's forward to
"Programming Python" 1st edition.

https://www.python.org/doc/essays/foreword/

Also his comments when he set up the "Computer Programming for
Everybody" initiative, which he led for several years. (Which
I can't locate...)

So I believe that ease of teaching was definitely part
of the original game plan and was definitely a factor in
some of the later developments around v2.0 or so.

-- 
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld
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