On 2009-07-26 09:16:39 -0400, a...@pythoncraft.com (Aahz) said:
There are plenty of expert C++ programmers who switched to Python;
"plenty" is an absolute term, not a relative term. I sincerely doubt that the majority of python users were formerly *expert* C++ programmers.
your thesis only applies to the legions of people who found it difficult to learn C++ in the first place.
No, my thesis applies to the overwhelming majority of programmers who found it more difficult to *master* (i.e., not merely use) C++ as opposed to mastering python. BTW, this is a *complement* not a dis; python is a better language than C++ precisely because it is more sensibly and elegantly designed than C++ and therefore easier to master.
php represents the same process but farther down the ladder, as it were. There's often a tradeoff between ease of mastery and power. python hits a sweet spot for many tasks and many programmers, especially as compared to C++ (or even lisp, which though more powerful than python is more difficult to master. lisp beats C++ on both counts imho - more powerful *and* easier to master). php hits a sweet spot only in a very restricted domain. Beyond that, it is clearly inferior to python which has greater power, but is more difficult to master.
-- Raffael Cavallaro -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
