That is one of the first goals. Also, we want to handle a C++ SAX stream with Python, and vice versa (feed a Python SAX stream into Xalan). Bi-SAXuality, in a sense. :)
Jürgen Hermann, 11 Apr 2001
As you seem totally unwilling or unable to understand that Weltanschauung to any extent, I don't see how you could bring Python any constructive enhancement (except perhaps by some random mechanism akin to monkeys banging away on typewriters until 'Hamlet' comes out, I guess).
Alex Martelli, 17 Apr 2001
"Are we more likely to add different concrete subclasses of Consumable in the future, or different concrete subclasses of Consumer? I suspect the former is more likely."
"With genetic engineering being the latest growth industry, I'm not sure that's true. Although I expect that any new models of cow, etc. will have a backwards compatible food-consumption protocol."
Alex Martelli and Greg Ewing, 19 Apr 2001
This property is called confluence, and the proof is called the Church -Rosser theorem. I'm sure you know this, of course, but somewhere out there there's a college student who is being shocked that CS is actually turning out to be relevant, for sufficiently small values of relevance.
Neelakantan Krishnaswami, 20 Apr 2001
if the style mafia finds out, you may find a badly severed list comprehension in your bed one morning, but I'd say the risk is very low.
Fredrik Lundh, 10 May 2001
1495 is a deservedly unpopular number. After all, Lorenzo de' Medici ("il Magnifico") died in 1492, and Giovanni de' Medici ("dalle Bande Nere") wasn't born until 1498, so 1495 fell right in the middle of a very boring and unusual lull where no really outstanding member of the Medici family (either branch) was around.
Alex Martelli, 24 May 2001
"What do you call the thing that pops up and says `Searching' or something to reassure the user that his computer hasn't crashed and the application is still running?"
"On Windows, that's called 'a miracle'."
Laura Creighton and Tim Peters, 28 May 2001
In general, my conclusion after doing numerical work for a while is that the desire to look at algorithms crucial to your research as black boxes is futile. In the end, I always had to dig into the details of the algorithms because they were either never black-boxable or the black-box versions didn't do a good enough job.
David Ascher, 28 May 2001
"Oh, read all Kahan has written, and if you emerge still thinking you know what you're doing when floating point is involved, you're either Tim Peters, or the world champ of hubris."
"I find it's possible to be both <wink>."
Alex Martelli and Tim Peters, 20 May 2001
Wow, this almost looks like a real flamefest. ("Flame" being defined as the presence of metacomments.)
GvR, 13 Jun 2001
"Maybe we also have a smaller brain than the typical Lisper -- I would say, that would make us more normal, and if Python caters to people with a closer-to-average brain size, that would mean more people will be able to program in Python. History will decide..."
"I thought it already has, pretty much."
GvR and A.M. Kuchling, 14 Jun 2001
Did Guido use the time machine to get a copy of the GoF book before he started working on the first version of Python, or are Patterns just a transparent attempt to cover for chronically inexpressive languages like C++ and Java which can't generally implement these mind-numbingly simple constructs in code?
Glyph Lefkowitz, 7 Jun 2001
Google confuses me; if you search for "michael hudson" my page is the third hit -- but my name doesn't actually appear anywhere on the linked page! The "did you mean to search for..." feature is also downright uncanny. They've clearly sold their souls to the devil -- there's no other explanation.
Michael Hudson, 28 Jun 2001
You didn't say what you want to accomplish. If the idea of "provably correct" programs appeals to you, Eiffel will give you more help than any other practical language I know of. But since your post didn't lay out your assumptions, your goals, or how you view language characteristics as fitting in with either, you're not a natural candidate for embracing Design by Contract <0.6 wink>.
Tim Peters, 3 Jun 2001
The static people talk about rigorously enforced interfaces, correctness proofs, contracts, etc. The dynamic people talk about rigorously enforced testing and say that types only catch a small portion of possible errors. The static people retort that they don't trust tests to cover everything or not have bugs and why write tests for stuff the compiler should test for you, so you shouldn't rely on only tests, and besides static types don't catch a small portion, but a large portion of errors. The dynamic people say no program or test is perfect and static typing is not worth the cost in language complexity and design difficulty for the gain in eliminating a few tests that would have been easy to write anyway, since static types catch a small portion of errors, not a large portion. The static people say static types don't add that much language complexity, and it's not design "difficulty" but an essential part of the process, and they catch a large portion, not a small portion. The dynamic people say they add enormous complexity, and they catch a small portion, and point out that the static people have bad breath. The static people assert that the dynamic people must be too stupid to cope with a real language and rigorous requirements, and are ugly besides.
This is when both sides start throwing rocks.
Quinn Dunkan, 13 Jul 2001
I am becoming convinced that Unicode is a multi-national plot to take over the minds of our most gifted (and/or most obsessive) programmers, in pursuit of an elusive, unresolvable, and ultimately, undefinable goal.
Ken Manheimer, 19 Jul 2001
Unicode is the first technology I have to deal with which makes me hope I die before I really really really need to understand it fully.
David Ascher, 19 Jul 2001
Moore's law is slowly making type declarations irrelevant...
Paul Prescod, 29 Jul 2001
The mark of a mature programmer is willingness to throw out code you spent time on when you realize it's pointless.
Bram Cohen, 20 Sep 2001
Generators and iterators are among the most loving features ever introduced. They will give and give, without ever asking anything from you save the privilege of gracing your code, waiting with eager anticipation for you to resume them at your pleasure, or even to discard them if you tire of their charms. In fact, they're almost pathologically yielding.
Tim Peters, 18 Oct 2001
IMO a bunch of the frustration I sometimes feel with Python comes from its originally being intended as a "glue" language. It's too good for that, and finds itself used as a work horse or even a race horse. Neither type of horse belongs in the glue factory ;-).
Paul Rubin, 30 Oct 2001
"Which inevitably has the followup rhyme 'There was a young man from Verdun'."
"But somehow no one ever seems to be able to remember what it was about the man from Abdero."
Simon Callan and Gareth McCaughan, 04 Nov 2001, after someone quoted the limerick "There was a young man from Wooloomooloo / Whose limericks always finished on line two."
Sometimes I feel like I'm reinventing Zope, but at least it's a Zope I understand.
Quinn Dunkan, 05 Nov 2001 on the quixote-users list
Homological algebra beckons -- brain relief in this context!
Michael Hudson, 07 Nov 2001, in a discussion of Stackless Python
If you're talking "useful", I'm not your bot.
Tim Peters, 08 Nov 2001
"How do you do a range of floats?"
"Bring flowers, and buy them all nice dinners. Try not to be too obvious that you're out to do them, though."
Thomas Wouters and Tim Peters, 09 Nov 2001
Changing diapers reminded Guido that he wanted to allow for some measure of multiple inheritance from a mix of new- and classic-style classes.
Tim Peters in a checkin message, 14 Nov 2001
My late father-in-law, Ray Pigozzi, was an extremely talented architect (he was made a fellow of the AIA in the late 70's or early 80's), and although he was by all accounts an excellent mentor to younger architects in the firm he cofounded, he also had the well- deserved reputation of being quite laconic (this I know from personal experience ;-). Early in his career, he received an award from some masonry organization for his use of brick in building OWP (now OWP&P) had designed. This necessitated the usual awards ceremony with dinner and speeches. The recipients who preceeded Ray to the podium all spoke at length about their work. Ray's entire acceptance speech was, "The building speaks for itself."
Skip Montanaro, 4 Jan 2002
The Lisp community is like a ghost town, with the occasional banshee howl echoing darkly around the chamber in lament of what might have been.
Courageous, 19 Jan 2002
I'll lend you Calendrical Calculations. Even skimming the chapters on some of the world's other calendrical delights makes our date gimmicks blind via the intensity of their clarity.
Tim Peters, 05 Mar 2002