[erlang-questions] I would never use python (was: separators before end)

[Jay Parlar]

On 9/21/07, Minsloc Tarren <minsloc@REDACTED> wrote:
> but i really don't like the syntax, mainly the fact that indentation is part
> of the syntax and the way oop is glued to the rest of python. zope, plone,
> django, and a few other apps nearly got me to learn it, but i always
> reconsidered.

You don't normally indent your code?

How you can say oop is glued? Everything is an object. Even functions
are objects. Do you think this just because of the explicit self? I've
seen this "claim" before, and it's just plain wrong. Look at the
source code for the Python interpreter, EVERYTHING IS AN OBJECT. And
the great part is, that if you hate OOP, you can just pretend it
doesn't exist.


> it's also said that every language opens your mind in another way.
> mentioning only the main langs in their respective categories, will python
> teach me something new after c, ruby, smalltalk, lisp and erlang (which i'm
> still learning) ?

If you already know Ruby *really* well, then Python won't teach you
too much. I'm a Python guy, I use it for everything that I can (though
I'm trying to learn Erlang), and for the most part, Ruby and Python
are interchangeable. Strongly typed dynamic languages with great
interpreters. Really comes down to which syntax you prefer, and a few
other minors things (ie. blocks, iterators). It's actually funny, how
similar Python and Ruby really are, considering their development has
not been linked at all.

Although for certain tasks, Python is much better, thanks to the large
number of third party libraries. Of course, the Ruby on Rails buzz has
helped Ruby gain more libraries, but some things just take a long time
to do (numpy and scipy, for example).


> learning something new and important would be probably the only thing that
> would force me to start with python ...

Again, if you already know Ruby really well, then there's not a
*whole* lot of reasons to learn Python. However, I'll tell you this:
It won't be hard to learn Python, if you know Ruby, and since it's
such a popular language, it's a good thing to know.

Jay P.