RE: How to move forward

Hans,

Can Python be installed on an AS400?

Cheers
Colin.W

-----Original Message-----
From: Hans Boldt [mailto:boldt@xxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: 21 August 2003 15:25
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: How to move forward


Jeff Crosby wrote:
> ...
> My question was more of a "which one first?" thing.
> 

 From what you described, probably HTML and CSS would be first. 
Others will follow as the need arises.

> Thanks.
> 
> PS, you really like that Python, don't you? <g>
> 

;-)

Yeah. I think it's a great language. I'm probably being overly 
cynical, but it'll never take over the world for the simple reason 
that I think most programmers don't want programming to be too easy.

Some years ago, I learned Java because, well, that's just what you 
did in the early 90's. I thought it was pretty cool, and a definite 
improvement over C++. But as my programs got bigger and bigger, I 
found it was too much like work. The Java compiler complains about a 
lot of seemingly nitpicky little things, and I found myself getting 
caught up in all the strong compile-time type checking rules.

When I abandoned OS/2 on my home computer and jumped over to Linux 
(the obvious alternative at the time), Perl was the next obvious 
language to learn since it's pretty much ubiquitous in the 
Unix/Linux world. I thought it was pretty cool at the time, with its 
concise and powerful syntax. Unfortunately, it suffers from several 
disadvantages: First, to use it properly and effectively takes a 
long time to learn. Second, it's effectively a "write-only" 
language. It's a real pain to try to figure out the code you wrote 
only weeks or days earlier.

Now on to Python. At first, it seemed like a pretty unassuming 
language with some curious features. In particular, a lot of people 
get turned off by the fact that leading white space in a line is 
significant. But when you start programming in Python, that issue 
very quickly becomes a non-issue, since most programmers code use a 
consistent indentation style anyways.

You know the feeling you get when you write a program and things 
start coming together and working properly for you? Well, the thing 
about Python is that you get to that point very quickly. Others have 
commented on their experience that they are 5 to 10 times more 
productive using Python, even starting out, and I fully agree with 
that. It's hard to describe, but writing Python code is an 
interesting experience - you get to the point of working code, and 
you still have time left over to continue coding and making the 
program better. It's so much fun you just don't want to stop!

So as I suggested before, even if you don't find a use for it at 
work, put Python on your home computer, and use it just for the fun 
of it.

Cheers! Hans


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