Re: jredford's flames and criticism (was: PYTHON VS. PERL VS. TCL )

jredford@lehman.com
Tue, 18 Apr 95 14:06:31 -0400

> From: "Steven D. Majewski" <sdm7g@virginia.edu>
> Subject: jredford's flames and criticism (was: PYTHON VS. PERL VS. TCL )
>
[...]
> jredford@lehman.com is also correct about some of his other criticisims
> about python - in that and previous messages.

Thanks...

> However, I think he's being quite disingenuous in the whole package in which
> he wraps those criticisms. Neither Perl or Tcl or scheme provide a better
> alternative to those problems. He may have other reasons to prefer one of
> those languages - they all have their uses and advantages, and none of
> them are perfect - but none of them provide the type of type-safety and
> module signature checking that he wants from Python, or many of the other
> features he seems to find lacking.

Well.. _I_ dont think I am biased. I (perhaps wrongly) stated that
Python was better for networking and memory-intensive code. I think
the bias is from the list of mostly Python users reading the message.

I was not arguing any of the languages was the best overall, I was
just replying to the post claiming Python was "obviously superior".

> If jredford@lehman.com were arguing that SML provided a better basis
> for software engineering than Python, I would have to agree. But Tcl ?
> - That's an assertion hard to take seriously!

It wasnt what I was saying. I was saying in that instance that it was
easier to write an embeded langauge in Tcl. Not just to embed the raw
interpreter, but to add new langauge constructs. Tcl and Scheme both
have clear advantages over Perl and Python here.

> But he does give a few valid criticisms of Python, mixed in with a bit
> of disinformation and misleading and abusive remarks. Replying *TO* him
> only seems to encourage the abuse and flames, but I would not throw out
> (all) the critisism. ( Anyone volunteer to write a jredford inverse
> text filter to remove some of the excess "personality" from the messages?)

Well, actually people who _only_ reply to me just get a reply back by
email. People who send mail to the list, get a reply on the list or
nothing. People who attempt to take snide positions:

From: "Steven Miale" <smiale@cs.indiana.edu>

In short, if you don't know something, you shouldn't insinuate it. This
is the sign of immaturity, of ignorance, of someone who should be put in
a KILL file.

will get nasty responses, regardless of how they do it. I dont believe
I am including any false or misleading information of a quantitative
nature. If so, please feel free to correct it.

--
John Redford (AKA GArrow) | 3,600 hours of tape.
jredford@lehman.com       | 5 cans of Scotchguard.