Guido van Rossum also has a similar wisdom and attitude, though very different goals and priorities than Bjarne Stroustrup of course, when he judges Python extension proposals by how "Pythonic" they are.
Even if somebody can come up with a clever syntactically valid way of changing python syntax or semantics (like in all heated discussions about lambda), it still might lack the proper "Pythonicity" that makes it fit in with the rest of the language, and would spoil the Zen of Python's [1] "There should be one -- and preferably only one -- obvious way to do it."-ness of the language.
Bjorn's April Fools joke paper "Generalizing Overloading for C++2000" paper [2] was so hilarious and self-aware because it elegantly conformed to and perfectly parodied the C++ way of doing things, yet showed what can happen if taken to extremes: you get 💩++ [3]
"Summary: An incident on python-dev today made me appreciate (again) that there's more to language design than puzzle-solving. A ramble on the nature of Pythonicity, culminating in a comparison of language design to user interface design."
... I'm not saying that one language or design philosophy is superior to the other, but that they're both quite aware of and well focused on their own different goals. (Virtues lacking from dazzled magpie design of PHP, for example.)
So it can be delicious when you combine them together [5] [6] like chocolate and peanut butter [7]:
Even if somebody can come up with a clever syntactically valid way of changing python syntax or semantics (like in all heated discussions about lambda), it still might lack the proper "Pythonicity" that makes it fit in with the rest of the language, and would spoil the Zen of Python's [1] "There should be one -- and preferably only one -- obvious way to do it."-ness of the language.
[1] The Zen of Python: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/
Bjorn's April Fools joke paper "Generalizing Overloading for C++2000" paper [2] was so hilarious and self-aware because it elegantly conformed to and perfectly parodied the C++ way of doing things, yet showed what can happen if taken to extremes: you get 💩++ [3]
[2] Generalizing Overloading for C++2000: http://www.stroustrup.com/whitespace98.pdf
[3] Unicode Character 'PILE OF POO' (U+1F4A9): http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1F4A9/index.htm
Guido's ramble on the nature of Pythonicity and comparison of language design to user interface design is very insightful: [4]
[4] All Things Pythonic: Language Design Is Not Just Solving Puzzles, by Guido van van Rossum, February 9, 2006: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=147358
"Summary: An incident on python-dev today made me appreciate (again) that there's more to language design than puzzle-solving. A ramble on the nature of Pythonicity, culminating in a comparison of language design to user interface design."
... I'm not saying that one language or design philosophy is superior to the other, but that they're both quite aware of and well focused on their own different goals. (Virtues lacking from dazzled magpie design of PHP, for example.)
So it can be delicious when you combine them together [5] [6] like chocolate and peanut butter [7]:
[5] Boost.Python: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_65_1/libs/python/doc/html/in...
[6] SWIG: http://www.swig.org/
[6] Reese's Peanut Butter Cups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuENAWds5B0