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Author: Vlad
Date:  
To: Hendrik Boom, dng
New-Topics: Re: [Dng] system scripting language.
Subject: Re: [Dng] system scriptinng language.
Hi, Henrik

I think that you nailed a lot of the problems still plaguing Python on the head, however OCaml and Modula are a bit obscure and lack the extensive libraries that Python brings to the table, moreover a lot of people know python, it is used extensively in other distros, and it is a relatively easy language to learn, I took a look at OCaml, and while it had some very neat features I really don't think that it is something that many people would like to learn or use.
This is of course just a first impression based on a cursory look at it, I might be wrong, I am kind of curious about OCaml.

We should also consider Go and Julia IMO.

Oh, and Microsoft is planning to open source and port .NET to Linux, please everybody hold the 'M$ is Cancer' comments for a sec, C# is a pretty decent language for application development, IMO it blows Java out of the water and it might have its uses.

On December 6, 2014 5:01:35 AM EET, Hendrik Boom <hendrik@???> wrote:
>It appears to be T.J. Duchene who said, in an article entitled "[Dng]
>More ranting thoughts [Re: Something wrong with devuan mail list?",
>which I can't reply to directly:
>
>> Lastly, I think that writing system management tools in Python is a
>> terrible idea.  Python is a language with "duck tying", which means
>that
>> a lot of errors are only detectable when the software is being run on
>> your setup. One sight change and "klabooey" - errors to STDOUT. I can
>> certainly think of other reasons to dislike systemd, but the fact
>that
>> the management tools are written in Python pretty much tops that
>> list. It's not an anti-Python rant, anymore than I hate Perl. I
>> just do not feel that Python is the right tool for the system jobs,
>> given that it: a) is duck-typed, b) has no fixed standard, and c)
>> versions of Python are incompatible.    

>
>This seems to be a coplaint against languages tht are not statically
>typed rather than against duck-typing. You need a conplete review of
>the entire code with a static type-check to get a lot of errors caught
>without haveing to encounter them during execution. Duck-typing itself
>
>does not stand in the way -- you can statially check a duck-typed
>language as long as it requires the progrmmer to declare the types of
>enough identifers.
>
>What you seem to want is a run-time secure, typed language.
>
>May I suggest a look at some compiled, garbage-collected languages for
>scripting? Two I like are Modula 3 and OCaml. The people at Jane
>Street have succeeded in configuring their OCaml for use as a scripting
>
>language -- compiled on demand by a suitable #! line at the start of
>the script file. Since they deal in finance (and I suspect autamated
>trading, though I don't really know), they have severe
>security requirements.
>
>Scheme is perhaps also a possiblity. Besides being the official
>(but not statically typed) scripting language for the GNU project,
>there's also Typed Rackeet, a completely independently implemented
>statically typed version of the langauge.
>
>Any of these would beat shell scripting for reliability. Some might
>even be convenient.
>
>-- hendrik
>
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