RE: Major change proposal

> -----Original Message-----
> From: 
> [email protected] 
> [mailto:[email protected]
.org] On Behalf Of Mark Hahn
> Sent: Monday, August 02, 2004 20:35
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [Prothon-user] Major change proposal
> 
<snip of proposal from Mark Hahn>
> 
> It will become Python3000.  In other words it will just 
> become more of a direct competitior with Python (or to be 
> more exact IronPython).  Our language features of Prototypes, 
> Python fixes, enhancements, etc. will be our marketing points.
> 
> I welcome feedback and thoughts on this major change.

Thoughts from a lurker.

First let me commend you on your openness and willingness to even consider
putting assign all that code that you have written.  Too many programmers I
have worked with would be unwilling to even consider it and for that I
commend you.  My opinion of you as a programmer just went up several very
large notches. :)

Now my thoughts on the proposal itself.  I would really like to see it
happen. I have been a python user for a number of years and I like it but
like you it has several warts that I would like to see cleaned up and for
that reason Prothon really intrigued me.  Once I started learning about it
and it's use of Prototypes I really like it.  My biggest and till now
unvoiced objection to it can be stated in one word.  Interoperability.

Moving to the CLR as the base really gives you the opportunity to address
that.  In your email you mention:
>but more importantly, it would have the entire Microsoft .net library
available to it.

While this is true, I don't believe it goes far enough.  You not only have
the .Net library available to it, if the language plays well in the .NET
environment, you have all .NET libraries available to it.  You can make use
of Java libraries through IKVM (http://weblog.ikvm.net/) which is a Java VM
that runs on the CLR.  Eclipse runs on it!  You would potentially have
access to all the python libraries through IronPython, which Jim Hugunin has
indicated he intends on finishing (http://ironpython.com/) but as an
employee of MS.  

It is this interoperability, or plainly put, the ability to play well with
other languages that is a huge plus in your proposal.

Also, unstated in your email but you probably realize this is the
portability card.  By targeting the CLR you also gain a huge amount of
portability.  Obviously OS differences must be accounted for in code that is
written but you no longer have to target individual hardware and different
OS's can be more easily targeted.  Imagine Prothon running not just on
Windows and Linux but also the PocketPC and all of these:
http://www.mono-project.com/about/technical.html#portability. Quoted here:

"Mono currently runs on Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, HP-UX and MacOS X.

The Just-In-Time engine (JIT) is available on x86 and PowerPC, Sparc and
S390 processors and can generate code and optimizations tailored for a
particular CPU.

Interpreters exist for the Itanium, HP-PA, StrongARM CPUs."


In short I think the benefits of moving Prothon to the CLR are huge.

-Mark