bruno at modulix wrote: > Paul Boddie wrote: > (snip) > > > I'm not sure why people get all defensive about Python's > > interpreted/scripting designation > > Because it carries a negative connotation of "slow toy language not > suitable for 'serious' tasks". Dynamicity apart, CPython's > implementation is much closer to Java than to bash scripts - but still, > as soon as you say "interpreted, scripting", peoples think "not serious".
Perhaps we should blame the main man for this confusing label, then [1]: "From one perspective you can say Python is a very high-level scripting language." Interestingly, with regard to my remark about various criteria being more appropriate when distinguishing between interactive and non-interactive languages, we also learn the following: "From another perspective you can say it's a high-level programming language that happens to be implemented in a way that emphasizes interactivity. Python shares some characteristics with scripting languages, but also shares some characteristics with more traditional programming languages." Of course, we've all had this debate before, or rather everyone else has had this debate before and I've mostly ignored whether people call Python a scripting language, an interactive language, an agile language, a dynamic language, an applications programming language, or whatever. Personally, I rather think that whichever labels one chooses to attach to a language or platform generally come about from the success stories one can show people in relation to that language or platform. But there are always going to be people who contrast something like CPython's runtime with the Java virtual machine and ask whether CPython has, for example as one distinguishing factor, just-in-time compilation as a generally supported feature, and such people will be genuinely interested in why such things typically lie outside the principal runtime development process. People like to find distinctions between things - sometimes arbitrary ones - and make classifications that allow them to arrange such things conveniently in their mind. What I find quite worrying is that while in previous years people have responded to such discussions with a critical analysis of where Python (or rather CPython) can be improved, it's now the fashion to just trot out some response or other which excuses rather than explains the way things are. Paul [1] http://www.artima.com/intv/python.html -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list