Re: About Python Was: CL/REXX Was: valid 5250 character set

On Thu, Jun 2, 2022 at 4:19 AM Patrik Schindler <poc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Am 02.06.2022 um 09:41 schrieb John Yeung <gallium.arsenide@xxxxxxxxx>:

But it was severely hampered by the inability to use much of the Python ecosystem, which is arguably the real strength of Python.

What exactly do you mean?

Are you asking what I mean by "ecosystem"? Or are you asking what I
mean by "Python's ecosystem is arguably its real strength"?

When I talk about ecosystem, I mainly mean the available libraries,
but depending on context could also include things like the user
community, availability of learning materials, ease of finding answers
to questions, etc.

When I talk about ecosystem being Python's strength, I mean that
Python's ecosystem is so attractive that people often choose Python
over other languages simply because they can easily get a Python
package that does what they need, and that package might not have a
counterpart in other languages that they had been considering.

I am not talking about pip, per se. I am talking about PyPI, which is
analogous to CPAN.

[...] I prefer the matured Perl environment over the still relatively new Python [...]

Perl, the language, is not that much older than Python (1987 vs.
1991), especially when you consider that the younger one is 31 years
old. If you mean PyPI is relatively new compared to CPAN, that's a bit
more apt, but PyPI is still nearly 20 years old, which I don't think
many people would consider "new". Or perhaps by "mature" you mean
"having very little active development"?

For administrative scripts, the plain Python language is already more than capable enough, but there is still the issue that it doesn't have a mechanism for output parameters, so in that regard, it's no benefit for Python to live in the QSYS.LIB environment.

What exactly are "output parameters"? Are you talking about stdin/stdout? AFAIK easily overwritten by OVRDBF, just like with FTP scripting.

If you have been following the conversation, people are talking about
passing parameters to a called program, and the called program
returning data via assigning values to those parameters. It would be
handy for Python programs to have output parameters in the same way
that CL and RPG programs have output parameters.

John Y.