"Steven D'Aprano" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I'd be interested in hearing people's stories of Eureka moments in > Python, moments where you suddenly realise that some task which > seemed like it would be hard work was easy with Python.
I don't recall the exact context, but Python was the language that introduced me to the power of a unified type system. The application I was writing was doing a whole lot of bookkeeping of information about what kind of data was being processed, which had to be kept updated in parallel with the data itself. Once I realised that "unified type system" and "first-class objects" meant that I could simply store the *type itself* as data, whether a basic type or one of my own, things became astoundingly easier. Soon after that I learned that functions are also objects, and I was hooked. I also don't think I would have been at all interested in Test-Driven Development if I wasn't already familiar with Python's object model, since it makes introspection and unit-test stubs and shims a breeze. So I lay a lot of the blame on Python for getting me test infected :-) -- \ "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the | `\ death your right to mis-attribute this quote to Voltaire." -- | _o__) Avram Grumer, rec.arts.sf.written, May 2000 | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
