Is Eric S Raymond still a "Pythoneer"

[Paddy McCarthy]

I just re-read "Why Python?" at
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=3882
The article is from 2000 and shows how a programmer who programmed in
many programming languages, and who wrote compilers and interpreters,
was introduced to Python and came to like it.

I wondered if there are any more recent interviews/articles from ESR
on his scripting language tools. I would be interested to know if he
still usesPython? Did he try any other "scripting" languages such as
Ruby or Lua?

I'm going to add the article to my bookmarks for ammo in trying to
change my strictly Perl workplace to at least consider Python.

(I should add that I do know of most of the good advocacy resources
available, I've collected them from answers to other peoples posts,
thanks).

Thanks again, Paddy.

 

[Ville Vainio]

Paddy> from ESR on his scripting language tools. I would be
Paddy> interested to know if he still usesPython? Did he try any
Paddy> other "scripting" languages such as Ruby or Lua?

Yes - for example he wrote a prototype of his SCO source code
comparison tool in Python. I think he still mostly uses Python for the
stuff he writes himself.

 

[Cameron Laird]

Paddy> from ESR on his scripting language tools. I would be
Paddy> interested to know if he still usesPython? Did he try any
Paddy> other "scripting" languages such as Ruby or Lua?

Yes - for example he wrote a prototype of his SCO source code
comparison tool in Python. I think he still mostly uses Python for the
stuff he writes himself.

.
.
.
You can write Eric yourself. Did he try other languages?
Check out <URL: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/ >.
Incidentally, have you heard the news about Lua? Look at
<URL: http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/book/ >.

 

[Pete Shinners]

Incidentally, have you heard the news about Lua? Look at
<URL: http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/book/ >.

I have no experience with Lua, but some of the code examples from the book
may frighten me away for good.

http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/book/code/allwords.lua.html



I suppose Python's recent introduction of generators makes this rather trivial.

def allwords():
for line in sys.stdin:
for word in line.split():
yield word

for word in allwords():
print word

 

[Cameron Laird]

I have no experience with Lua, but some of the code examples from the book
may frighten me away for good.

http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/book/code/allwords.lua.html



I suppose Python's recent introduction of generators makes this rather trivial.

def allwords():
for line in sys.stdin:
for word in line.split():
yield word

for word in allwords():
print word

Provocative comparison; perhaps Roberto will even join in
and comment here. In any case, there's still a place for
Lua, and I think there's value in the discussion of Lua
that comp.lang.python has already hosted.

 

[Paddy McCarthy]

I just re-read "Why Python?" at
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=3882
The article is from 2000 and shows how a programmer who programmed in
many programming languages, and who wrote compilers and interpreters,
was introduced to Python and came to like it.

I wondered if there are any more recent interviews/articles from ESR
on his scripting language tools. I would be interested to know if he
still usesPython? Did he try any other "scripting" languages such as
Ruby or Lua?

I'm going to add the article to my bookmarks for ammo in trying to
change my strictly Perl workplace to at least consider Python.

(I should add that I do know of most of the good advocacy resources
available, I've collected them from answers to other peoples posts,
thanks).

Thanks again, Paddy.

Oh, no! I sent the above, then found the right thing to search for in
Google and came up with this interview from January:
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3306511

It seems ESR is still a Pythoneer, and I have another important
article to add to my trove.

Thanks for the other replies, Ill follow them up to.

 

[rzed]

I have no experience with Lua, but some of the code examples
from the book may frighten me away for good.

http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/book/code/allwords.lua.html



I suppose Python's recent introduction of generators makes this
rather trivial.

def allwords():
for line in sys.stdin:
for word in line.split():
yield word

for word in allwords():
print word

NameError: global name 'sys' is not defined

The Python version includes trailing punctuation, while the Lua
version filters it out. It becomes a little less trivial to make
the two functionally identical.

It seems that the syntax of Lua can be a little more verbose. On
the other hand, here are two versions of (more or less) the
functional equivalent of the referenced Lua code:

# in Python:

import sys, string
tt = string.maketrans( '`~!@#$%^&*()_-+=:;"\'{[}]|\\?/>.<,',
' ' )
for line in sys.stdin:
line = string.translate( line, tt )
for word in line.split():
print word

-- in Lua:

line = io.read()
while line do
for word in string.gfind(line, "%w+") do
print(word)
end
line = io.read()
end

There are probably better ways to write the code in either
language. I've only been looking at Lua for a couple of hours, so I
can't really comment much about that. But overall, for a comparable
task, it doesn't look too scary.

 

[ciw42]

Provocative comparison; perhaps Roberto will even join in
and comment here. In any case, there's still a place for
Lua, and I think there's value in the discussion of Lua
that comp.lang.python has already hosted.

Ordered a copy of the Lua book as the language seemed quite
interesting and potentially useful. The full text was available on the
'net, but I like to read this sort of material whilst travelling.

Although it starts out describing quite a nicely structured language
(occasionally similar in concept to, but never as readable as Python)
as the book proceeds, the more in-depth examples become harder to read
(a lot more like Perl) and having finished the book I was left feeling
that the core language offered nothing useful over Python, in fact it
was rather lacking in many areas.

Don't get me wrong, I know if I had a good enough reason I could quite
quicky and reasonably happily start developing in Lua, but it's
unlikely to ever come close to Python for general purpose coding. That
said, it may well fit the bill for a new embedded low-spec PC-based
device we'll be starting development on in a few months time. The
Python runtime is just too big and this is one area where Lua wins
out, so we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Klaus Momberger]

Don't get me wrong, I know if I had a good enough reason I could quite
quicky and reasonably happily start developing in Lua, but it's
unlikely to ever come close to Python for general purpose coding.

Did you skip the foreword? They wrote just that. Lua is meant as an extension
language, not as an replacement for standalone scripting languages. It can
be used standalone, of course, which makes sense if you need speed or size of
the interpreter matters.

I just read the book during a long train-ride and liked it a lot. Terse and
to the point, and I could even learn something new from it. E.g. I hadn't heard
of coroutines before. I also liked the meta-classes stuff.

-klaus

 

[Peter Hansen]

Paddy> from ESR on his scripting language tools. I would be
Paddy> interested to know if he still usesPython? Did he try any
Paddy> other "scripting" languages such as Ruby or Lua?

Yes - for example he wrote a prototype of his SCO source code
comparison tool in Python. I think he still mostly uses Python for the
stuff he writes himself.

Another small data point: some work on the open source Python DNS server
"oak" was done recently by ESR, as noted in the change logs or the credits.

-Peter

 

[John J. Lee]

(e-mail address removed) (Paddy McCarthy) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>... [...]

I wondered if there are any more recent interviews/articles from ESR
on his scripting language tools. I would be interested to know if he
still usesPython? Did he try any other "scripting" languages such as
Ruby or Lua?

[...]
Oh, no! I sent the above, then found the right thing to search for in
Google and came up with this interview from January:
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3306511

It seems ESR is still a Pythoneer, and I have another important
article to add to my trove.

[...]

If you come to the Python UK conference (part of the ACCU Spring
conference), you may even meet him in person. He's a keynote speaker
in the Open Source event that's also taking place at the ACCU
conference, but I imagine he'll be mingling with Pythonistas too.

https://www.accu.org/conference/

(the site is due for a significant revamp next week, so check back for
more details on the Python conference and Open Source forum)


John

 

[Michael]

Just don't do anything you need to think about with him around. He's a
nice guy but he likes to stand behind you and ask about what you are
doing. Really drove me bananas when setting stuff up for our Linux expo
he was a speaker for. ( General rule: ask questions after the busy geeks
are setup - not during. )