python vs d

[John Colvin via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 29 April 2014 at 10:51:26 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad 
wrote:
> On Monday, 28 April 2014 at 18:45:54 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
>>> Libraries.
>> not part of the language (unless you count the standard 
>> library. I don't see anything particularly special about 
>> python's standard library).
>
> Hmm… I think that for Python, Ruby and Perl, the libraries and 
> the ecosystems to a large extent are part of the language. And 
> I think the lack of C-like efficiency in the language encourage 
> that, e.g. you don't really care that much about a library 
> being 50% faster/slower. You care primarily about getting the 
> job done. Not so with C/C++ libraries…
>
>>> For closures for arrays and dicts.
>> I don't understand
>
> I used the wrong term, I meant list comprehensions. The most 
> important feature in Python for me. I find it very powerful in 
> combination with tuples, lists and dicts.
>
>> improvements. It's surprising how much python-style tuple code 
>> you can do in D already, but the syntax is a little lacking.
>
> But for tuples the ease-of-use syntax is important, otherwise 
> you can just use struct or some other aggregate. Tuples are 
> often used as anonymous on-the-fly structs.
>
>>> (Runtime integration of python and templates.)
>> I presume you mean web templates?
>
> That is the most common scenario.
>
>> This is a strong point in favour of an interpreted language, 
>> although the compile-time approach in vibe.d is powerful. As 
>> long as the code doesn't change too often, you can always 
>> recompile it and load as a shared library (I believe this is 
>> being looked at by vibe.d developers).
>
> Yeah, except when you build a CMS, but you can always include a 
> scripting language.
>
> However, given the trade offs I still think I would prefer 
> static typing (such as D) because runtime errors tend to show 
> up after release. (Assuming fast on-the-fly compilation which 
> is a must-have for web development.)
>
>>> Lots of how-to-stuff on the web.
>> Ditto
>
> Actually,  I think it is part of the language's resulting eco 
> system.
>
> I believe "toolbox" languages like Python and Perl will have 
> more recipes and "nimble quick fix libraries" on the web than 
> application languages.

My bet is that D users will be able to produce the same sort of 
quick-fix libraries. The newsgroups are dominated by systems-type 
people and there is a serious emphasis on super-low-cost 
abstractions, but in my opinion D is a more than suitable 
language for throwing together something that just "does the 
job", but with much more pleasant routes for later optimisation 
than other languages.