Bill Atkins wrote:
> Buh? The project doesn't have to be late for Brooks's law to hold;
> adding programmers, so goes Brooks reasoning, will always increase the
> time required to complete the project because of various communication
> issues.
1. This is not what Brooks says. Brooks was talking about late
projects. Please provide a supporting quote if you wish to continue
to claim that "adding programmers will always increase the time
required to complete the project".
2. There has to be a mechanism where an organization can add
developers - even if it is only for new projects. Python advocates
would say that getting developers up to speed on Python is easy
because:
- it fits most programmers brains i.e. it is similar enough to
languages that most programmers have experience with and the
differences are usually perceived to beneficial (exception:
people from a Java/C/C++ background often perceive dynamic
typing as a misfeature and have to struggle with it)
- the language is small and simple
- "magic" is somewhat frowned upon in the Python community i.e.
most code can be taken at face value without needing to learn a
framework, mini-language, etc. (but I think that the Python
community could do better on this point)
I'm sure that smarter people can think of more points.
> Fair enough. But what does Python offer above any garbage-collected
> language that makes it so scalable?
See above point - you can more easily bring programmers online in your
organization because most programmers find Python easily learnable.
And, as a bonus, it is actually a pretty flexible, powerful language.
Cheers,
Brian
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