"malv" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: [snip] > Once you get involved in larger projects, the dynamic nature of the > programming tool becomes much more important. I mean by this, the > ability to stop running code, modify or add to it and continue without > having to re-establish the state of the program. This may sound trivial > to many, but in major applications setting up the state again can take > a considerable processing time. Such feature should be available from > within the debugging tools. > > In fact, languages like Smalltalk, Lisp and even VB offer this > possibility. > Ruby coming up strongly these days also has this dynamic reload > capability. > To sum up, I like Python very much but I don't understand how come this > basic flaw has not been taken care of. It is sufficient to search for > "reload" to see how many people have struggled with it over the years. > I hate the idea of having to take up Ruby to really find out how it > could serve me better in this most critical productivity area. >
What is "major project"? We have 50 people working on a project, over 5 years, in Python. Much of the regresison test can be done by rebuilding context in RAM (no need to persist). That is immediate (whole test suite runs in a few seconds). Sometimes we have to reestablish context by clearing the database and then reloading objects from test_input XML files. That is slow (perhaps an over night job). I've yet to experience a context where language features are the rate limiting step. On the other hand, I have definitely experienced language as a rate limiting factor in a) peer code reviews, b) debugging, c) ramping up new team members. Python wins those battles everytime. -- Harry George PLM Engineering Architecture -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list