On 24 Jul, 12:02, "Sebastian \"lunar\" Wiesner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Fortunately, Python isn't designed according to your ideas, and won't > change, so consider your posting a waste of time.
This is the kind of petty response that serves only to shut down discussion that might actually lead to genuine attempts to remedy issues (or "warts") with Python. Although the tone of the complaint was badly chosen, it is always worth jumping over the fence and considering whether things could be made better. Without complaints being aired, how do you expect any advances around things like the "old and outdated modules in the standard library, or real showstoppers in Python (e.g. the GIL)" that you mention elsewhere? > If feeling like bringing such old "issues" up again next time, spend > your time learning another programming language, as you would > obviously not get happy with Python anyway ... Such a constructive response that is! Instead, I think it is interesting to consider why methods still require an explicit "self" parameter - something which has been discussed previously - and whether there might be a case for omitting it from the signature - perhaps in a variant of Python - in methods which are defined within class definitions (as opposed to those assigned to classes later). Indeed, there's scope for experimentation with Python variants, just to investigate whether certain features added to CPython can be considered essential, and which features might be considered of marginal benefit. I recall that some features (eg. lexical scoping and closures) were eventually added to Python partly to remedy issues with lambda definitions, but also because the lack of such features was cited repeatedly by proponents of other languages. In such a climate, it can be easier to "meet the challenge" and implement features to silence the critics rather than to insist that they are of marginal benefit (although it's interesting to note this in a thread where improvement suggestions are deemed "a waste of time" - I suppose the community is now more resistant to suggestions from "unofficial" sources). A review of such language "enhancement" decisions would be interesting, but since one shouldn't expect this from the CPython implementers, I feel that it is the role of others to do so in their own experiments. Of course, such experiments are often derided as "lesser Pythons" or misunderstood, but that's another unfortunate trait exhibited by parts of the Python community. Paul -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list