What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

[Reinhold Birkenfeld]

Hello,

another Perl/Python question: the subject says it all.

Perl is going to change dramatically to become a more powerful and
easier to (read|write) language.

Is Python taking a similar step (-> Python 3) some time in the near future?

Reinhold

--
[Windows ist wie] die Bahn: Man muss sich um nichts kuemmern, zahlt fuer
jede Kleinigkeit einen Aufpreis, der Service ist mies, Fremde koennen
jederzeit einsteigen, es ist unflexibel und zu allen anderen Verkehrs-
mitteln inkompatibel. -- Florian Diesch in dcoulm

[Cliff Wells]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

On Sat, 2004-10-30 at 11:18 +0200, Reinhold Birkenfeld wrote:[color=blue]
> Hello,
>
> another Perl/Python question: the subject says it all.
>
> Perl is going to change dramatically to become a more powerful and
> easier to (read|write) language.
>
> Is Python taking a similar step (-> Python 3) some time in the near future?[/color]

assert("Perl 6" < "Python 2")

Somehow I suspect that assertion will hold for the foreseeable future,
no matter how much the numbers change <wink>

--
Cliff Wells <clifford.wells @comcast.net>

[Valentino Volonghi aka Dialtone]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

Reinhold Birkenfeld <reinhold-birkenfeld-nospam@wolke7.n et> wrote:[color=blue]
> Perl is going to change dramatically to become a more powerful and
> easier to (read|write) language.[/color]

Why do you say this? Did you read the whole Apocalypses? Anyway 15 days ago
freshmeat published this:

http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/1339/

Maybe, it's not that easier to read or write.
[color=blue]
> Is Python taking a similar step (-> Python 3) some time in the near future?[/color]

Why? What do you need to do in python that you can't do right now? Isn't it
read-write friendly enough?

Perl6 is, currently, a 4 year development effort that no one knows when will
be ended (I even read that it will take another 4 years), maybe, if it takes
so much to develop just the first version, it's really too complicated.

--
Valentino Volonghi aka Dialtone
Now running FreeBSD 5.3-beta7
Blog: http://vvolonghi.blogspot.com

[Dirkjan Ochtman]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

Reinhold Birkenfeld wrote:[color=blue]
> Hello,
>
> another Perl/Python question: the subject says it all.
>
> Perl is going to change dramatically to become a more powerful and
> easier to (read|write) language.
>
> Is Python taking a similar step (-> Python 3) some time in the near future?
>
> Reinhold[/color]

The virtual machine underlying the Perl 6 language, Parrot
(www.parrotcode.org) will also support running Python. This will
probably incur performance benefits as well as allowing some interesting
interoperabilit y between Perl 6 and Python-on-Parrot.

Whether Python-on-Parrot will become the official Python: I don't know.

Regards,

Dirkjan

[Reinhold Birkenfeld]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

Valentino Volonghi aka Dialtone wrote:[color=blue]
> Reinhold Birkenfeld <reinhold-birkenfeld-nospam@wolke7.n et> wrote:[color=green]
>> Perl is going to change dramatically to become a more powerful and
>> easier to (read|write) language.[/color]
>
> Why do you say this? Did you read the whole Apocalypses?[/color]

Yes, I read most of the Apocalypses, the Exegeses and the Synopses.
[color=blue]
> Anyway 15 days ago freshmeat published this:
> http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/1339/[/color]
[color=blue]
> Maybe, it's not that easier to read or write.[/color]

For average programs, it seems that it will. Just think about classes.
One thing the freshmeat article complains about is breaking
compatibility. Well, you can't correct design mistakes by keeping old
syntax around.

A great plus will be the new regular expressions.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Is Python taking a similar step (-> Python 3) some time in the near future?[/color]
>
> Why? What do you need to do in python that you can't do right now? Isn't it
> read-write friendly enough?
>
> Perl6 is, currently, a 4 year development effort that no one knows when will
> be ended (I even read that it will take another 4 years), maybe, if it takes
> so much to develop just the first version, it's really too complicated.[/color]

That's a point. The whole object system (roles, interfaces, etc.) is far
too complicated and almost no one will need it.

Reinhold

PS: I'm happy with Python, and I'm not going to complain about it. But
as a programmer who uses both languages, I'm just asking because I'm
curious...

--
[Windows ist wie] die Bahn: Man muss sich um nichts kuemmern, zahlt fuer
jede Kleinigkeit einen Aufpreis, der Service ist mies, Fremde koennen
jederzeit einsteigen, es ist unflexibel und zu allen anderen Verkehrs-
mitteln inkompatibel. -- Florian Diesch in dcoulm

[Michael Hoffman]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

Dirkjan Ochtman wrote:[color=blue]
> The virtual machine underlying the Perl 6 language, Parrot
> (www.parrotcode.org) will also support running Python. This will
> probably incur performance benefits as well as allowing some interesting
> interoperabilit y between Perl 6 and Python-on-Parrot.[/color]

I'll believe the performance benefits when I see them. The Parrot people
promised they would be faster by OSCON 2004 or Guido would get to pie
Dan Sugalski in the face. If you don't already know what happened, you
can see a picture here:

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/zach/archives/006129.html

--
Michael Hoffman

[Valentino Volonghi aka Dialtone]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

Reinhold Birkenfeld <reinhold-birkenfeld-nospam@wolke7.n et> wrote:[color=blue]
> Yes, I read most of the Apocalypses, the Exegeses and the Synopses.[/color]

I hope it worths the effort :P
[color=blue]
> For average programs, it seems that it will. Just think about classes.
> One thing the freshmeat article complains about is breaking
> compatibility. Well, you can't correct design mistakes by keeping old
> syntax around.[/color]

Correct, but breaking everything in the language will make Perl6 a
completely new one, just preserving the name. And the community will have to
relearn from scratch to love it. Are you ready to almost trash all the
current perl5 library?
[color=blue]
> PS: I'm happy with Python, and I'm not going to complain about it. But
> as a programmer who uses both languages, I'm just asking because I'm
> curious...[/color]

I actually hope python 3.0 is not that far away, since there are some tiny
things that really need to be fixed in python2. Perl and Python, after all,
have a very different philosophy and the featurefulness of perl6 will be
matched with the extreme simplicity and clarity of python (which is also
a feature)

--
Valentino Volonghi aka Dialtone
Now running FreeBSD 5.3-beta7
Blog: http://vvolonghi.blogspot.com

[A.M. Kuchling]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 11:18:30 +0200,
Reinhold Birkenfeld <reinhold-birkenfeld-nospam@wolke7.n et> wrote:[color=blue]
> Is Python taking a similar step (-> Python 3) some time in the near future?[/color]

The list of features for Python 3000 is described in PEP 3000,
appropriately enough:

http://www.python.org/peps/pep-3000.html

Most of the suggested changes remove redundancy, such as removing
now-unneeded built-in functions and language features.

--amk

[Ville Vainio]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

>>>>> "Reinhold" == Reinhold Birkenfeld[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>>> <reinhold-birkenfeld-nospam@wolke7.n et> writes:[/color][/color][/color]

Reinhold> A great plus will be the new regular expressions.

Well, if they are any good we'll just port them to Python. "import
re2" and we are all set. Everyone wins.


Reinhold> PS: I'm happy with Python, and I'm not going to complain
Reinhold> about it. But as a programmer who uses both languages,
Reinhold> I'm just asking because I'm curious...

Overall, there seems to be some kind of minor consensus (to the extent
it means anything in the internet) that perl6 is a disaster that is
taking way too long to happen. Implementing (rather making the design
decisions) py3k seems trivial in comparison.

--
Ville Vainio http://tinyurl.com/2prnb

[gabriele renzi]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

Michael Hoffman ha scritto:

[color=blue]
> I'll believe the performance benefits when I see them. The Parrot people
> promised they would be faster by OSCON 2004 or Guido would get to pie
> Dan Sugalski in the face. If you don't already know what happened, you
> can see a picture here:
>
> http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/zach/...es/006129.html[/color]

well, they failed to implement all of the tests but those implemented
actually run faster than CPython.
Anyway they are at 0.1.1 or something like that. There is time to become
faster or to disappear completely, I guess

[Jonathan Ellis]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

Reinhold Birkenfeld wrote:[color=blue]
> Hello,
>
> another Perl/Python question: the subject says it all.
>
> Perl is going to change dramatically to become a more powerful and
> easier to (read|write) language.[/color]

Perl6 has been in development since 2001 and isn't anywhere near done.
No doubt it will be done sometime but it reminds me of Gnu Hurd --
working alternatives are out there so it's hard to get excited about
vapor. (Which isn't exactly fair to the Hurd guys. :)

Perl6 will fix some of the worst broken-ness of perl5 but I haven't
seen anything indicating that Wall's TMTOWTDI philosophy has changed,
so it will still suck for anything nontrivial.

-Jonathan

[Jonathan Ellis]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

A.M. Kuchling wrote:[color=blue]
> The list of features for Python 3000 is described in PEP 3000,
> appropriately enough:
>
> http://www.python.org/peps/pep-3000.html
>
> Most of the suggested changes remove redundancy, such as removing
> now-unneeded built-in functions and language features.[/color]

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but a quick google search
didn't find anything on moving [has|get|set]attr into attributes of
object. Why wouldn't this be considered a Good Thing? Just because
Ruby people would like it? :)

-Jonathan

[Reinhold Birkenfeld]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

Jonathan Ellis wrote:[color=blue]
> A.M. Kuchling wrote:[color=green]
>> The list of features for Python 3000 is described in PEP 3000,
>> appropriately enough:
>>
>> http://www.python.org/peps/pep-3000.html
>>
>> Most of the suggested changes remove redundancy, such as removing
>> now-unneeded built-in functions and language features.[/color]
>
> I'm sure this has been brought up before, but a quick google search
> didn't find anything on moving [has|get|set]attr into attributes of
> object. Why wouldn't this be considered a Good Thing? Just because
> Ruby people would like it? :)[/color]

You can take this step even further:

The builtin functions (that aren't doomed for py3k) can be classified in
those groups:

A. Constructors for built-in types

basestring, bool, complex, dict, file, float, int, list, long, object,
str, slice, tuple, type

These cannot be made attributes of some object.

B. Functions that can be attributed to some class or module

abs, divmod, round, pow -> math

ord -> str
In consequence: [uni]chr -> int
hex, oct -> int

super, *attr, isinstance, issubclass -> object

hash -> sys?

C. Functions that could be made attributes of lists/sequences

max, min, len, enumerate, sum

But that would require to implement them for all sequence types or
implement a common basetype 'seq'.

D. Other functions I cannot attribute to a class

eval
globals, locals, vars
iter
property
classmethod, staticmethod
cmp
[x]range
repr
__import__

Reinhold

--
[Windows ist wie] die Bahn: Man muss sich um nichts kuemmern, zahlt fuer
jede Kleinigkeit einen Aufpreis, der Service ist mies, Fremde koennen
jederzeit einsteigen, es ist unflexibel und zu allen anderen Verkehrs-
mitteln inkompatibel. -- Florian Diesch in dcoulm

[A.M. Kuchling]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

On 30 Oct 2004 15:42:46 +0300,
Ville Vainio <ville@spammers .com> wrote:[color=blue]
> Well, if they are any good we'll just port them to Python. "import
> re2" and we are all set. Everyone wins.[/color]

I don't think so. Perl5 regexes are pretty independent of the rest of the
language, but Perl6's are interweaved with the rest of Perl's syntax, so I
don't think we'll ever see a Perl6-equivalent of PCRE.

--amk

[Michael Hoffman]

Re: What is Python's answer to Perl 6?

Reinhold Birkenfeld wrote:[color=blue]
> C. Functions that could be made attributes of lists/sequences
>
> max, min, len, enumerate, sum
>
> But that would require to implement them for all sequence types or
> implement a common basetype 'seq'.[/color]

And iterators?
--
Michael Hoffman