Re: [RFC] Adding Python as a possible language and it's usage

[Paul Koning <paulkoning@comcast.net>]

> On Jul 17, 2018, at 8:23 PM, David Malcolm <dmalcolm@redhat.com> wrote:
> 
>>> Hi.
>>> 
>>> I've recently touched AWK option generate machinery and it's quite
>>> unpleasant to make any adjustments. My question is simple: can we
>>> starting using a scripting language like Python and replace usage
>>> of
>>> the AWK scripts? It's probably question for Steering committee, but
>>> I
>>> would like to see feedback from community....
>>> I'm looking forward to a feedback.
>>> Martin

David gave a number of good arguments.  I support Martin's proposal, both as to replacing AWK and specifically the choice of Python for that purpose.

Python fits the bill very well in my experience.  I've used it to write several large programs, including such non-obvious ones as two network protocol stack implementations.

In roughly 40 years, and roughly 40 programming languages, I've only twice encountered a language where I could go from knowing nothing at all to writing a substantial real world program in just one week: Pascal (in college) and Python (about 15 years ago).  This is why Python became my language of choice whenever I don't need the speed or small memory footprint of C/C++.

	paul