> >
> > python is a very nice language.
> > Why don't you just write the speed critical parts in C or C++.
> > That's how everyone does it in python.
>
> Showing only that python isn't up to the task.
> Just like all these other interpreted languages: .NET, Java...
>
> It's cheating, and they all do it: falling back to compiled
> languaged. My message to the designers of these languages:
> Quit fooling around, and do things right from the start.
>
This does bring up an interesting point, why is it that more and more
languages are becoming interpreted or bytecompiled ? I mean, surely the
python designers could have written platform level compilers for no more
difficulty than to write bytecompilers ?
Heck they even got jython - compiling to the java vm so they must have had the
option.
Instead it offers the choices of bytecompiled or scripted.
Why is source portability not enough ? Why sacrifice so much speed and power
to get "binary" compatibility (or at least cheat so it looks like that) ?
Of course that is not the only power that gets lost, memory management,
pointers - there is so much these approaches sacrifices, now I know their
designers love to say things like "if you need pointers you are doing it
wrong" but in my mind that is a cop-out to avoid dealing with the fact that
they make it impossible for programmers to use a truly powerful construct
that can do some pretty amazing things.
The simple truth is that even java's pseudo implementations of things like
hash tables to get around the fact that in other languages those are done
with pointers aren't good - I have USED java's hash table interface, it's
horrid !
As I told a SUN employee a few days ago "I will stick with having a truly
powerful source-portable fully object oriented language that doesn't practise
bondage-and-discipline on style for as long as such languages exist - in
short, I will use and promote lazarus - not java"
As an aside, I remain adamant that anybody who writes a free software/open
source program in Java is being foolish. What is the POINT of a free software
program that REQUIRES a non-free program just to RUN ?
Ciao
A.J.
--
"there's nothing as inspirational for a hacker as a cat obscuring a bug
by sitting in front of the monitor" - Boudewijn Rempt
A.J. Venter
Chief Software Architect
OpenLab International
www.getopenlab.com
www.silentcoder.co.za
+27 82 726 5103
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