Need Help in Preparing for Study of Python by Forrester Research

[Jeff Rush]

Forrester Research is doing a study on dynamic languages and has asked that
Python be represented. As advocacy coordinator I've volunteered to drive
this, collecting answers from the community and locating representatives to
participate in interviews.

The goal of the study is to:

- identify the criteria to use for evaluating such languages
- identify the relevant choices of dynamic languages
- identify how the different dynamic languages stack up
- examine where dynamic languages work best

Initially, they'd like feedback (not yet the answers themselves) from us
regarding their proposed evaluation criteria - questions to add or that give
no value, rewording to make them more clear. I've posted their draft
criteria, which came as a spreadsheet at:

http://dfwpython.org/uploads/ForresterPrep/DynamicLanguagesCriteria.xls

Later, between May 8 and 25, the researchers will need to interview via 1-hour
telephone calls, several developers with experience using Python. And they
want to also interview one person with an executive viewpoint, able to
describe relevant background, positioning, value proposition, customer base,
and strategic vision.

And later they would also like snippets of Python code that illustrate the
power of Python, and I hope to call upon community members to help in
producing that. The snippets do not have to be originally written and can be
pulled from existing projects.

But those steps come later. For now let's focus on analysis of the evaluation
criteria at the above URL. Time is short as they'd like that feedback by May
3, so please get any responses to me as soon as possible. And be thinking who
would best represent the executive view of Python in an interview.

Thanks for your help,

Jeff Rush
Advocacy Coordinator

 

[Jim]

What does it pay?

 

[Duncan Booth]

Initially, they'd like feedback (not yet the answers themselves) from
us regarding their proposed evaluation criteria - questions to add or
that give no value, rewording to make them more clear. I've posted
their draft criteria, which came as a spreadsheet at:

http://dfwpython.org/uploads/ForresterPrep/DynamicLanguagesCriteria.x
ls

That's a somewhat weird definition of polymorphism:

Polymorphism
Does the language support polymorphic behavior?
Measured by support for polymorphics behavior 5 = functions/methods
can be overridden and the developer can define identical function
names with different parameter sets. 1 = functions cannot be
overridden but identical function names with different parameter sets
can be defined 0 = functions cannot be overridden and only one
function can be defined with a given function name

Polymorphism means you can write a single function which operates with
different data types, not that you can override methods or write multiple
functions with the same name (that is known as overloading).

Overriding and overloading are different things than polymorphism. If you
want a separate question about overriding then your criteria are still a
bit strange: Python methods can be overridden but not overloaded[*] so none
of your possible answers applies.

[*] Unless you write some code to support overloading, which is easy enough
to do but not something most people bother with.