From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 17301 invoked by alias); 11 Jul 2008 21:37:02 -0000 Received: (qmail 17289 invoked by uid 22791); 11 Jul 2008 21:37:01 -0000 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.3 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,SPF_HELO_PASS,SPF_PASS X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from mx1.redhat.com (HELO mx1.redhat.com) (66.187.233.31) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:36:26 +0000 Received: from int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (int-mx1.corp.redhat.com [172.16.52.254]) by mx1.redhat.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id m6BLaOkV032470 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:36:24 -0400 Received: from pobox.corp.redhat.com (pobox.corp.redhat.com [10.11.255.20]) by int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id m6BLaOTn023972; Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:36:24 -0400 Received: from opsy.redhat.com (vpn-10-60.bos.redhat.com [10.16.10.60]) by pobox.corp.redhat.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id m6BLaM6G018546; Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:36:23 -0400 Received: by opsy.redhat.com (Postfix, from userid 500) id 86D0B508080; Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:36:22 -0600 (MDT) To: Jan Kratochvil Cc: Frysk List Subject: Re: Roadmap beginnings References: <20080711205531.GA15721@host0.dyn.jankratochvil.net> From: Tom Tromey Reply-To: Tom Tromey X-Attribution: Tom Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:37:00 -0000 In-Reply-To: <20080711205531.GA15721@host0.dyn.jankratochvil.net> (Jan Kratochvil's message of "Fri\, 11 Jul 2008 22\:55\:31 +0200") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.1 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.58 on 172.16.52.254 X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact frysk-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: frysk-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2008-q3/txt/msg00025.txt.bz2 >>>>> "Jan" == Jan Kratochvil writes: Thanks for sending this to the list. Open critique is important. Tom> based on Python. From our perspective, Python is the best Tom> choice because it is popular and generally acceptable. Jan> This is already your personal bias, it may be worth to design the Jan> scripting support easy enough to add more language bindings there Jan> (such as Perl XS). (I do not track your GDB patches to say more Jan> about them.) Yeah. This is my bias -- though FWIW I personally am not a big Python fan. There are two parts to this idea: one scripting language, and the particular choice. Why one language? I think the most important reason to prefer a single scripting language is that this enables an ecosystem of useful scripts. Why Python? Python is popular at Red Hat and beyond, and is more or less a critical part of the distro. I think it is fair to describe it as the de facto default scripting language choice at Red Hat. Finally, I think projects that try to be scripting-language-neutral often fail to be good at any of them. Kinda OT, but: the choice of Python for gdb has more or less the same rationale; but there I didn't pick it -- I just picked up Volodya's initial code, and I think he followed the outcome of a discussion on the gdb list in early 2007. Tom