Re: when and why did python(-minimal) become essential?
On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 04:44:32 +0100, Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> said:
> Le samedi 28 janvier 2006 à 21:13 -0600, Manoj Srivastava a écrit :
>> > Sorry, but there's a whole new generation of Debian developers
>> > here that simply won't develop anything in perl, just because
>> > perl looks too complex and cryptic to us.
>>
>> I see. I am not sure how I can respond to this without seeming to
>> be insulting. We are trying to build the best OS out there, and
>> ifone of the most popular glue languages is too abstruse for
>> people, perhaps they should, umm, reconsider their qualifications?
> You don't only *seem* to be insulting. Just because people don't
> want to waste their time with an inefficient language, you label
> them as incompetent? Guess what, some people have better to do than
> learning perl or C++. If you're going to refuse contributions from
> people who don't understand perl, I'm not sure you're going to build
> the best OS out there - only the best perl OS.
The project has elected to use a high level language as
essential. It is not necesarrily a language that is everyone's
favourite, but it is adequate to the task. You elected to contribute
to Debian, instead of Ubuntu, which prefers python (if I understand
correctly). It seems like part of the skills you need to develop is
learning to package debian -packages using the conventions of the
project.
You do not _have_ to use Perl -- you can use any language you
want, in every maintainer script -- as long as you pre-depend on that
language.
Not learning the packaging mechanism , or the high level
language selected as essential -- is just laziness.
>> Heck no. We definitely need ruby, for the whole OO thang that
>> python messed up ;). And while we are talking OO, how about a
>> teensy smalltalk interpreter?
>>
>> Or how about some haskell, so we can _prove_ maintainer scripts are
>> correct? I mean, surely we can make a strong case for haskell,
>> which is a different kinda beast than procedural languages.
>>
>> Or Scheme. Oooh, scheme.
> Thank you, I too can provide a list of languages. What are you
> trying to prove?
I wondered if I would have to dot the i's and cross the t's.
Since we are talking about adding to the languages whose interpreters
are included in Essential packages, and the only argument presented
seems to be "I am too lazy to learnperl, or Perl is too hard for me",
one needs to consider the subjective opiniuons of people who would
much rather not touch the nightmare that is python with a 10 foot
pole, and would much prefer the sanity of ruby, haskell, smalltalk,
or sheme.
Since there are few maintainer scripts in any of these
languages, and none without pre-depends, I fail to see what makes
python stand out (apart from sheer horror of progamming in it, of
course ;-).
> If a good number of scripts that would be worth including in the
> base system were written in haskell or scheme, I would be the first
> one to support that inclusion. Guess what? Such scripts don't exist,
> because these languages are currently not suitable for these tasks.
No scripts using python exist either. Even in Ubuntu.
manoj
--
A good workman is known by his tools.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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