"Kay Schluehr" wrote: > > Think about it: if the > > project fails (and that's quite likely for huge projects, not dark > > humour) and you've done it in python, everyone will blame python and > > you who chose it; java OTOH belongs in the realm of "standard > business > > practices", so in a way "it's ok" to screw up, you did what everybody > > else does. Yet another failed java enterprise project, nothing to see > > here. > > Hi George, You probably know the tale about Achilles and the turtle? > Where do You think Achilles would be located in the race against the > turtle if Zeno would have convinced him that motion is impossible? I > always thought that we Germans were hopeless pessimists ;)
Yeah, I know the tale; the difference is that the convincing arguments there were a fallacy, while Pointy-Haired-Bosses are for real ;-) So instead of calling this pessimism, I would put it somewhere between cynicism and realism :-) > It's a very funny logical loop inside this kind of arguments: don't use > great Python for grand multimillion $ projects because if You fail > everyone trashes cute Python and claims that it is not reliable for > grand projects and therefore will not be used for those. I see what you're saying; however there's an 'else' branch in the argument. That is, *if* such a grand project succeeds (possibly at a much lower budget than predicted), it will similarly be a big boost for marketing python. It's a high-risk / high-payoff bet. The reason I would be cynic or pessimist (call it what you will) in this case is mainly the inexperience implied in the OP's post ("I have been looking and reading a lot about Python recently"). Now, if a decent percentage of the multimillion $ bill would be invested in hiring 10 PSF members with Alex Martelli for project lead, I would certainly reconsider my statement about going with java <wink>. George -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list