Re: OOPs!! When is a class not a class? (Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language)

 --- Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...> skrev:

(I've answered to some points in my last message; we
agree about type handling problems).

> >> So, when I'l be through with JavaScript, I'll
> learn
> >> Java (probably at least 1500 pages ?) and C++,
> and a
> >> dozen of other things, including DHTML, XTHML,
> XML,
> >> XSL, PHP, MySQL, Perl, Unix, vi, Apache, Tomcat,
> etc,
>
> Learn Python.

Aaaaargh ! I had forgotten Python. Well, I'll give you
a real (true) anecdot about it. Don't get me the wrong
way, just read it to the end :

Some smart guy (not joking, he *is* smart) wrote a
small Python application for us, coupled with a Zope
database (I don't know anything about Zope). The
purpose was to incorporate a list of codes into the
DB, from time to time. The first time I did it myself
(because my colleague was ill), I saw a list of
different "scripts" on my screen. I chose the one
which looked right to me, according to its title, and
clicked. The result was immediate: Windows was out of
service, and I had to restart the machine (couldn't
even use Ctl-Alt-Sup any more).

Was Python guilty ? Not at all, of course. The
conceptor was guilty. He had proposed different
scripts in bulk, and one of these scripts was supposed
to incorporate the data (unfortunately, I had missed
it), while another one was supposed to reload the
SCRIPTS (and that's what I had done). So, do you
suppose that there would have been an alert message,
like: "Hey, man, watch what you're doing, are you SURE
you will erase the scripts and reload them ?" Not at
all. When I explained "my" mistake to the smart guy,
he was rather angry, because he had to REWRITE the
scripts (he had a copy of them somewhere, but it
wasn't at hand...), and when I asked him "but why
didn't you include an alert ?", he said: well,
normally, *I* was supposed to do the job, so I was
supposed to know what I am doing.

Oh yes. Never suppose anything when programming. What
you suppose will NOT happen (first programmer's rule).
 That's for one. Secund: such obvious methodology
problems I was alreading facing 20 years ago. So it
seems that we have learned nothing in all these years.
We have learned new languages, new concepts, more and
more complicated, but we still are not able to make a
simple, safe, easy-to-use and efficient application.

So, Python or not Python, the result was the same, the
scripts were erased and everybody lost his time and
went angry.


>It's a dream to use and you won't regret it.
Quite. That's what I thought after erasing the scripts
:-)

>And stick with JavaScript: it's got a lot of good
ideas.

True. But, as Flanagan himself says: JavaScript is NOT
simple (this is a "myth").



=====
Philippe Caquant


Ceterum censeo *vi* esse oblitterandum (Me).