Re: Some python comments/questions (correction)

Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl
Wed, 13 Oct 1993 11:07:03 +0100

> Good - I'm thinking of doing a Modula-3 interface, but I'm waiting
> for the name changes...

You don't have to wait for the name changes -- all the new names are
in the 0.9.9 release (see python/misc/NAMING and
python/misc/RENAMING). The new filenames aren't in place yet but you
can count on <Py/Python.h> to replace "allobjects.h" plus a few more
that are needed by all or most extension modules.

> I have to say that I don't think the 'primes' program included in
> the BLURB document is a good example of Python's clarity and
> ease-of-use. We need a clear bit of sample code that makes people say
> "Hey, this is worth downloading" when it appears on comp.sources.

Hmm, that is indeed a somewhat convoluted bit of code. I think we
would need several short examples, highlighting different aspects of
the language: a simple numerical algorithm (printing Fibonacci
numbers? who can think of a more interesting example?), some I/O and
system calls, some object-oriented stuff, some windowing (would an
example using Motif be a better choice than one for STDWIN?).

I guess nothing would convince die-hard perl hacks because there's
always a shorter way in Perl, but for those who are afraid of Perl it
might actually work to compare a few cases of Python and Perl code...
(Though of course it is much more dramatic to compare Python with
equivalent C programs...)

--Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam <Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl>