Kubuntu a dist in crisis?

[Derek Broughton]

Steve Lamb wrote:

> Chris Jones wrote:
>> The bottom line is "each to your own", everyone has their own favorite
>> language, and generalized statements about how one is faster to code in
>> than the other are nonsense.
> 
>     This patently false and easily demonstrable.  If it were true why 
>     would we need any of the other languages past assembly?  Indeed, why 
>     any new languages, anywhere, at all?

You're talking _specifics_, not generalizations.  We need high-level 
languages (in general) because they are easier to code in, but we don't need 
Python instead of Fortran _for every task_.  Some things will be easier to 
write in one language than another.  If we tried to make something that 
handled _all_ tasks equally well, we'd probably have Assembler :-)  So, no, 
your hypothesis is not only not easily demonstrable, but I think easily 
disproven - all we have to do is find a single case where any action 
requires fewer statements in one language than another to show a use where 
the first language is better; then find a reverse case for the same two 
languages.  And that, of course, only deals with the actual ease of 
programming - there are still efficiencies to be gained for specific 
functions written in specific languages (which is why so much of python 
invokes C behind the curtain).
-- 
derek