[Types-sig] Re: PRE-PROPOSAL: Python Interfaces

[Justus Pendleton]

On Tue, Nov 24, 1998 at 03:34:54PM +0000, Jim Fulton wrote:
> Also note that you don't have to turn Python into a 
> formal specification language to use a formal specification
> language to model algorithms that get implemented in Python.
> You can use various formal languages to reason about and 
> even provide the correctness of algorithms and then map
> those algorithms into Python.

While I think the discussion about types (and interfaces and whatnot) is
(occassionally) illuminating and (sometimes) interesting, I can't help but
wonder if all the effort is misplaced.  Python seems to have done just fine
without interfaces.  Lots of languages have done fine without interfaces.
While I happen to think that interfaces are nifty I can't recall ever seeing
any empirical evidence that they are useful in any way whatsoever.  What's
more, there are plenty of languages that already do most (if not all) of the
things that people are asking to have Python do.  Why not just use one of
those languages?

While I think that Python is a nifty language, it isn't exactly popular.
What popularity it _does_ have is, I think, because of its rapid prototyping
abilities.  I wonder if all of these proposals are trying to turn a loose
language into some hulking Ada95 clone....

-- 
Justus Pendleton <justus@acm.org>