From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 26991 invoked by alias); 14 Feb 2007 17:47:31 -0000 Received: (qmail 26983 invoked by uid 22791); 14 Feb 2007 17:47:31 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from heller.inter.net.il (HELO heller.inter.net.il) (213.8.233.23) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Wed, 14 Feb 2007 17:47:25 +0000 Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([81.5.56.116]) by heller.inter.net.il (MOS 3.7.3a-GA) with ESMTP id BWK22894 (AUTH halo1); Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:46:53 +0200 (IST) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 18:01:00 -0000 Message-Id: From: Eli Zaretskii To: Daniel Jacobowitz CC: jimb@codesourcery.com, gdb@sourceware.org In-reply-to: <20070214155620.GA7098@caradoc.them.org> (message from Daniel Jacobowitz on Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:56:20 -0500) Subject: Re: GDB and scripting languages - which Reply-to: Eli Zaretskii References: <20070108222005.GA27451@nevyn.them.org> <20070210203307.GA27502@nevyn.them.org> <20070214155620.GA7098@caradoc.them.org> X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2007-02/txt/msg00132.txt.bz2 > Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:56:20 -0500 > From: Daniel Jacobowitz > Cc: Jim Blandy , gdb@sourceware.org > > On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 05:41:06PM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > > Even if the exception issue is worked out, though, I'm still concerned > > > that Lua doesn't have as much momentum as Python. Python's wealth of > > > other libraries available (gui; graphing; networking) brings a lot of > > > potential with it. And there are a lot of programmers out there who > > > could just start scripting GDB the day Python support is committed. > > > > Python is a full-fledged programming language, not a language created > > for extending other programs. Do you really think we need networking, > > graphics, and GUI in GDB scripts? That sounds like an awful overhead. > > None of that's in the core of Python, you'll notice. It's all in > modules. Some of those for networking are standard modules, but none > of it would be linked in to GDB. I only talked about them because Jim did, and I assumed that he mentioned those because he thought it was important to have them in GDB. > But in any case those aren't the > ones I had in mind: I was thinking of things like XML, text > processing, and high-performance numerics. More details would help make this discussion more constructive. How ``high-performance'' should our numerics be, and why? Do you have any quantitative criteria? As for text processing, what features do you think we need, specifically? > Based on this discussion, I think we probably won't convince you that > Python is the best choice. Why do you think so? I certainly didn't dismiss anyone's arguments as easily as others dismiss mine. The only real argument in favor of Python that I heard was that it's widely used and known. That's not a lot to become convinced, since what I'm suggesting is not some unknown language either, or something invented just now. > Do you think that Python would be a bad choice with serious negative > consequences? Python is an excellent language, so choosing it cannot possibly be bad or have serious negative consequences.