I agree partially about your "best programming language" statement: there are languages which are useful for very few things - see Fortran - while others have broader applicability. With C++ one can do well and comfortably enough scientific computing, system programming, graphics, and a host of other things. It does not have to be a zero sum game.
Regarding the difficulty of deciphering, I guess it is in the eye of the beholder. Try explaining metaclasses, decorators, __new__() overloading or the method resolution order for multiple inheritance in Python to someone who makes a living doing embedded programming in C :) Python certainly has a lower barrier of entry than many other languages, but any sufficiently complicated language will look alien once you get off the beaten path. This is especially true when a language evolves; you mentioned modern C++ in an earlier mail, and it is true that it will look alien to most people who learned '90s style C++. On the other hand, it allows you to do things that no other language can, so I am not sure it is fair to say it is difficult to decipher - it is just an entirely different thing. Anyway, sorry for the rambling :) Francesco. On 11 June 2015 at 18:50, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: > (off topic) > > On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 8:58 AM, Francesco Biscani <bluesca...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Or at least it is not hard to write modern C++ that is very difficult > for > >> others to work on. > > > > > > Isn't it true for most languages? > > In my opinion, absolutely unequivocally not. Each programming > languages has a huge range of pros and cons. Each programming > language (and standard library) is good at expressing certain things > and bad at others. Ability to easily write very > difficult-to-decipher code is something C/C++ is better at than some > other languages such as Python. > > I'm sure that anybody who has really learned a few very different > programming languages well (having written and worked on a few tens of > thousands of lines of code in each) would agree. > > In my mind I do not view Python is "the best programming language for > everything" any more than I view my impact driver as the best tool in > my toolshed for everything. (Though impact drivers are pretty > awesome.) > > William > > > I have seen nested list comprehension > > one-liners in Python that make my skin crawl. > > > > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "sage-devel" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > > email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. > > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > > -- > William (http://wstein.org) > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "sage-devel" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
