Davor wrote: > Thanks, > > I do not hate OO - I just do not need it for the project size I'm > dealing with - and the project will eventually become open-source and > have additional developers - so I would prefer that we all stick to > "simple procedural" stuff rather than having to deal with a developer > that will be convincing me that his 50 layers inheritance hierarchy is > good since it exists in some weird pattern that he saw somewhere on > some Java design patterns discussion board :-) and other "proper" OO > design issues... Once I opted for C++ in a very small project and > believed everyone will stick with C subset + better type checking > offered through C++ - but I simply could not manage to keep them off > using OO stuff which was just making program more complicated than it > should have been. (note, I am not an experienced developer, nor the > others I'll be working with (even though some think they are:-)), so I > prefer preemptively dealing with issue of everyone showing off their OO > design skills) >
I think Davor is making an important point here: Python has grown in the last 14 years, and it is no more the simple scripting language it used to be. In particular, it evolved a lot of OOP "cruft" (static/classmethods, properties, the __new__ method, super, the new MRO, descriptors,metaclasses, etc.) and there is more than a learning curve issue coming with the added complexity. Davor is right: even if you do not want to use it, the stuff is *there* and somebody in your team will. So definitely there is an audience of programmers that just do not have an use for all the sophistication and actually are penalized by it. There is not much than can be done at the Python level. But I would see with interest a Python spinoff geared towards simplicity. Few months ago there was the Prothon proposal (by all means a terrible proposal) but the goal that motivated it (simplification, trying to remove classes) was in my opinion worthwhile. Now, *how* to remove (or simplify) classes is not at all clear to me, not I am convinced that prototypes are the right way to go, but still I feel that there is something wrong with inheritance. Maybe protocols are the solution, who knows? But in any case I think it is important to keep searching for semplicity. I do not believe Python is the definitive language, and it is probabily possible to introduce something better. It is just that nothing of the kind appeared until now, but I keep watching at the horizon ;) Michele Simionato -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
