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The Python Paradox, by Paul Graham
GnuVince writes "Paul Graham has posted a new article to his website that he called "The Python Paradox" which refines the statements he made in "Great Hackers" about Python programmers being better hackers than Java programmers. He basically says that since Python is not the kind of language that lands you a job like Java, those who learn it seek more than simply financial benefits, they seek better tools. Very interesting read."
I know that those who seek my python are indeed, seeking better tools..not merely financial benefits. And they are not disappointed.
Oh yeah. Feelin' 15 today.
Python is not the kind of language that lands you a job like Java
And boy am I glad of that! I've seen it suggested Java is a bit like Playskool(TM) programming, and I agree. Java? No thanks. My trial of Java made me feel a bit like a destitute banging my head against a wall for hours... except banging my head against a wall would have been more productive
Python... a decent procedural language. TCL/TK my choice for getting [the front end of] a job done. VB: No way, although it barely gets the job done it is better than Java. I am an real programmer, I want to get something done in the minimum amount of time to get the job done to a high standard... something like TCL/TK for my GUI controls etc and a proper language/backend (some custom C++, some other languages regarded as 'obscure' because intelligence, rather than script-kiddieness, is needed to use them) that gets the job done quickly, something I can program quickly and easily (rather than obstuficating myself into some bizarre bastardisation, like spending tens of hours doing manipulating some _basic_ n-dimensional arrays through a series of loops, error checks, non-transparent processes).
Java is nothing to look up to, but in the end the script-kiddie language, the language which makes us think like a computer and work to the lowest common denominator, appears in dominance.
You use Java for many reasons, I would guess. In large part because you have a job using Java? You got a job using Java because Java has certain attributes and advantages, many of which are valid. But those advantages are soleless. They are advantages like "you can find Java developers". Or the conservative nature of your workplace. Risk avoidance. Even encapsulation -- a technique intended to save developers from themselves. People who consider that an advantage are exactly the people Graham is not talking about.
A lot of people choose Java, but only a very small number for open source projects, especially if you discount projects that were initiated by corporations. If Java is so great, why don't they use it? Because, in that case, the developer has a choice. Because the choice is left to their personal aesthetic sense -- exactly the sense Paul Graham spends so much time talking about.
Changing topics: aspects. Aspects are stupid. They make sense in a language like Java that has no metaprogramming capabilities. They are absurd in other languages like Python or Lisp. It's a whole technique built around a broken language. Metaprogramming facilities like metaclasses and macros do everything aspects do, only they do it reliably and transparently. Aspects are literally just a form of macro, and yet they manage to obfuscate even that simple idea, maybe to make it appear revolutionary.
Someone in Sun marketing should get a nice bonus for brainwashing the "Java is a compiled language" nonsense in 90% of people who know the difference.
The holy Java bytecode is practically Java source with a bit terser syntax. All the high level constructs are there and, as 50% of above mentioned group knows, Java can be decompiled from bytecode to almost identical source it was compiled from (sans comments of course).
What is Java beneath this hype? A scripting language without the benefits of being interpret and with the downsides of compiled languages. What a nice compromise.
How could someone get this in to the "programming experts" heads'? Hire the same guy who is responsible for current reputation of Java?
And this shows you don't know squat about Lisp. Lisp is not merely a functional language - it is a multi-paradigm language with facilities for functional, procedural, declarative, pattern-driven, and object-oriented programming paradigms. Plus all of those features are well-integrated in a common syntactic base.
Or, to put it in a way all you Xtreme dooods can understand, "Common Lisp is da bomb..."
That is all.
Your prima facie retarded banter does only slightly less than Erik Naggum's vitriol to assure that lisp will remain a family of fringe languages, and long before your vaporware lisp dialect can even be as minute a footnote as your brief and unimpressive programming career, your inane Java-programmer trolling and Raymond-class attempts at equivocated self-promotion will eventually burn themselves out as no one can any longer take anything you say seriously. Do Python the favor of sparing it your brand of deluded advocacy.
Maybe you can take up programming, since you do seem to be so interested in it.