[Python-Dev] If you thought there were too many PEPs... (original) (raw)

Tim Peters tim_one@email.msn.com
Sun, 27 Aug 2000 05:57:42 -0400

[Greg Ward]

...yow: the Perl community is really going overboard in proposing enhancements: ... 4. http://dev.perl.org/rfc/

Following that URL is highly recommended! There's a real burst of creativity blooming there, and everyone weary of repeated Python debates should find it refreshing to discover exactly the same arguments going on over there (lazy lists, curried functions, less syntax, more syntax, less explicit, more explicit, go away this isn't stinking LISP, ya but maybe it oughta be, yadda yadda yadda). Except the terms of the debate are inverted in so many ways! For example, this is my favorite Killer Appeal to Principle so far:

Perl is really hard for a machine to parse.  *Deliberately*.  If
you think it shouldn't be, you're missing something.

Certainly a good antidote to Python inbreeding .

Compared to our PEPs, the Perl RFCs are more a collection of wishlists -- implementation details are often sketchy, or even ignored. But they're in a brainstorming mode, so I believe that's both expected & encouraged now.

I was surprised by how often Python gets mentioned, and somtimes by how confusedly. For example, in the Perl Coroutines RFC:

Unlike coroutines as defined by Knuth, and implemented in laguages
such as Simula or Python, perl does not have an explicit "resume"
call for invoking coroutines.

Mistake -- or Guido's time machine ?

Those who hate Python PEP 214 should check out Perl RFC 39, which proposes to introduce

">" LIST "<"

as a synonym for

"print" LIST

My favorite example:

perl -e '><><' # cat(1)

while, of course

><;

prints the current value of $_.

I happen to like Perl enough that I enjoy this stuff. You may wish to take a different lesson from it .

whichever-it's-a-mistake-to-ignore-people-having-fun-ly y'rs - tim