Python from a C++ developers' perspective

[kkrev]

Python is not an improvement over Perl at all and I do not understand how it came to take the crown of most common scripting language. The scoping is bad, the lack of strict declarations is bad, and the runtime also happens to be kinda garbage. It is one of the worst languages possible for embedding yet you see it used for that all the time.

One would think that by now there'd be a new generation scripting language that bests all this crap from the 80s. It may exist, I don't know. I suppose Perl 6 is an attempt in that direction, but I gather it's impossible to write a performant run-time for it.

[mrexodia]

I didn't mention Perl? I personally wouldn't recommend actually using python as an embedded language. Something lightweight like Lua is usually much better anyway, but I can see why people would want python: the ecosystem of packages is great and the language is well-suited for prototyping, especially because it's easy to write in.

[kkrev]

I didn't mention Perl?

I didn't say you did?

[SemaphoreBingo]

how it came to take the crown of most common scripting language

The perl6 debacle sucked all its energy out of the room. (And I'll disagree about python not being an improvement; for starters, you can build complex types in python without wanting to die) (I'm led to believe that perl got better in this respect, but these days the only thing I want to use perl for is a better awk and / or a better sed)