[Glastonbury] Python [WAS: Another company recognizes Liux is HERE!]

[Tim Hall]

On Wednesday 25 June 2003 14:58, Martin WHEELER wrote:
> Aaargh - aargh -- Tim! =A0You're beginning to remind me of the middle-a=
ged
> lady I met at a MUSE (Microcomputer Users in Secondary Education)
> conference some 20+ years ago -- who was loudly telling everyone in
> earshot that it was *criminal* for BASIC to be taught in UK schools, an=
d
> everyone should be compelled by law to teach young minds LOGO.
> The evangelical stance was appalling. =A0(Particularly when she added t=
hat
> 6 months previously she hadn't known what a computer was -- she was one
> of those re-cycled Latin teachers in vogue at that time.) =A0That was m=
y
> one and only attempt ever to become involved with IT in the secondary
> sector. =A0(I've been 40 years in HFE.)

Fair enough. I both speak and write Bollocks fluently :-)

>
> Tim, have you thought about the *nature* of the various problems you
> might be using any particular language to solve? =A0Real-time fast
> manipulation of physical hardware (Forth?); boringly repetitious
> execution of stupid scientific formulae (Fortran?); natural language
> recursiveness and redundancy (Lisp?) =A0And what if you want to deal wi=
th
> rapidly changing/evolving Markov chains in a neural network?
> Hmmm?
>
> As usual, it's horses for courses -- or: Choose your algorithm before
> choosing your language.

Good point. Actually I do think about such things. That's why I tend to u=
se=20
Python for the specific problems that I have to solve, but you're absolut=
ely=20
right that I wouldn't actually use it for everything. Thanks for making t=
hat=20
point though, I've not had any formal grounding in programming and I'm=20
largely stirring up the waters to elicit useful information of this kind.

cheers

tim hall