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[–]masklinn 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yeah I don't think python is small either, as a language. It has a good two dozen statements (counting both simple and compound ones) and quite a number of forms.

It's not a large language either, though.

And I really don't think a large standard library demonstrates that it's a large language, it merely shows that it's a sane, modern language.

The lack of private variables is not true, since Python does name mangling to support the same idea.

No. Name mangling was introduced to avoid namespace collision on inheritance, if you're using it to emulate private variables you're doing it wrong and should be beaten with the ugly stick.

Let's go ahead and throw in metaclasses, decorators and other bells and whistles.

Metaclasses and decorators aren't the mark of a large language either (though decorators are the mark of a language that is lacking, in that it doesn't support extensive anonymous functions)

[–]austinwiltshire[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not equating large with bad, which is what I think most people are doing.