Language putdown of the year
If you want a language that doesn't believe in type checking at all, except when it does, try Python. Don't just toss it casually aside for the bizarre indentation-based syntax when there's so much else broken about it.
(Peter Corlett, commenting on language design.)
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I tend to use C as a scripting language these days; it’s hard enough trying to coax a web server into working, and adding the Sekret Special incantations that are needed to use things like Perl or PHP (which I started learning, but gave up in disgust when I realized that it is the computer language for people who think that Perl is bogged down by government standardization committees.)
I have to work with goddamn python at work, because the stupid R*dh*t installer is written in that language (and it’s fragile! Having the language crash and drop you into a debugging window is just the thing you want an OS installer do do. And because it’s “object oriented®™©”, you can rest assured that the thing that made the stupid thing fall into the debugger is hidden behind six or seven function calls and abstraction layers.
I figure I’ve got about another decade in programming before the rise of the thrice-damned programming languages and the C++ wannabes convert C into some horrible mutant son of C# which will no longer compile K&R code. It will be just like FORTRAN all over again, except that these changes will go in because they’re q00l.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
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I will probably buy “Python for Dummies” when Stef and Aahz get it completed. Nogt because I want to learn the language, particularly, but because I have to futz around apps written in it on occassion.
My first introduction to python was a failed attempt to comment out a line of code that, as its sole purpose, took over the sound card on my computer. Even with the sound option turned off, the app took over and stopped all sound.
Comment out one line. Easy, right. Nope. I broke the indent syntax.
I tried to like python just because Aahz loves it so. I’ve failed. :) I have also tried to like php – I see a lot of php – but once again, I’ve failed.
I still like tcl as a scripting language, though it, too, has a lot of problems.
I’ve started playing a little with Ruby. Ruby seems EVER SO MUCH BETTER than php at playing the web game, but I’ve not started any new projects since I started learning it.
Right now, I’m in php hell. :)