Entries created during 2004

Phillip J. Eby has a recent weblog entry, Python is not Java, wherein he points out a few aspects of Python that are notably different from Java but that are similar enough that Java coders working in Python mistake them for their Java counterparts.

He touches on a few of the characteristics that led me to make Python my general purpose language of choice, a title that had belonged to Java as recently as a year ago. I thought it might be useful to explain these characteristics without assuming the reader has a whole lot of Python experience but that they do have significant Java experience. This would have helped me immensely in determining whether Python was right for me much sooner and I hope it can be of use to someone else.

I'm planning on covering each of the items Phillip points out in his article over the next month and if that works out, I may extend the series to a few other things that may be useful.

This is not a Python is better than Java thing. Instead of bashing aspects of Java's language and library that are obviously valued by the Java community, or insulting the intelligence of Java coders, or using any number of other techniques you might find in Every Language War Ever, Phillip is simply asking Java programmers who may be dabbling in Python to take a closer look at some of the features that make Python unique and attractive instead of attempting to force-fit concepts from Java. If you base your expectations of Python on Java concepts, you are likely going to have a bad experience with Python.

Continue on for the first part of the series, which talks about some of the differences between Python class methods / class variables and Java static methods / static variables.

I've had a few conversations recently where someone expressed interest in GNU/Linux and asked about getting involved. I really wanted to suggest that they consider joining the Fedora project but I couldn't do that comfortably because, well, there are some pretty massive issues.

So I'm really excited to see that Redhat is finally getting around to really supporting the excellent volunteer community that has dedicated themselves to making Fedora, and by extension Redhat's commercial offerings, excellent distributions. Herewith some recent news that led to this post...