I wouldn't use Python if I required calculations at hardware speed. I'd do
it in C myself.
That's why my "toolbox" contains 3 languages:

1. C (not C++) for low-level, native stuff.
2. Java for enterprise applications.
3. Python for scripting (and to stimulate and soothe the mind).

Anything else holds purely academic interest for me - a luxury I can seldom
afford as much as I would love to re-discover some Lisp and explore Erlang.

If I were to judge a language purely on the merits of the language itself,
Python is just so damn elegant... I miss it's terseness and simplicity when
I code in Java.

But in terms of "getting the job done", my current toolbox suffices. I
happen to spend most of my time doing enterprise applications, and for that
nothing comes close to Java. I just don't care too much for the Java 5
syntactic "features" - I can do without them and have been made aware of
some nasty pitfalls that they have introduced.

Yet, if someone asked me now to develop an application that needs to
interface with a database, parse some XML files, read-write data over a
socket and present a user interface in either a standalone GUI or web
application, and have it run on various Os's, then I wouldn't dream of doing
it in anything other than Java.

So, when someone states that Java is a "terrible" language - take the
comment with a condiment of your own choosing. I suspect that if presented
with the task of completing an enterprise application in time and budget
using language "X", then you'd likely hear cries of just how terrible
language "X" is now that they are forced to use it, and how much they fondly
miss their cup o' Java ;)

Johan.

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 11:28 PM, Noel Grandin <noelgrandin@gmai...> wrote:

>
> Python?
>
> That would the language that makes a hard requirement that you have a
> C programmer on your team, because it can't do calculations at
> anywhere close to hardware speeds.
> The language run-time that requires manual interventions to prevent
> memory leaks because it uses reference-counted GC?
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 17:07, Johan Steyn<johan.steyn@gmai...> wrote:
> >>
> >> Fritz Meissner wrote:
> >> > In that case I'd be fascinated to hear what isn't a terrible language
> ?
> >
> > Python.
> > I wouldn't say Java is terrible. It avoids many errors that are common in
> > C/C++ (where I started), but introduced other pitfalls - of which Heinz
> > mentioned some.
> > I wouldn't ever consider using .Net, and in my free time I (used to)
> dabble
> > in a bit of Python, which to my senses is just plain no-nonsense
> > straightforward done right. I have no interest in Perl anymore, and I
> > haven't looked at Ruby, which I think gained popularity on the back of
> Rails
> > rather than the language itself in it's own right.
> > IMO, if you know some C for low-level, fast native apps, Java for
> enterprise
> > apps, and Python for scripting - with obviously some intersection among
> > them, then you are pretty much sorted to tackle any programming task
> without
> > needing to know any other language.
> > That said, I haven't looked at Lisp since 1992, but I don't see a need
> for
> > it other than stretching my mind - which is a good thing in it's own
> right
> > ;)
> > Johan.
> > >
> >
>
> >
>

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