PG: Arc Likely To Be Open-Sourced This Winter

Re:PG: Arc Likely To Be Open-Sourced This Winter by SwellJoe on Tuesday January 15, 2008 @03:50AM (#98615)

I wasn't actually referring to the usual Python idioms, but if you're unfamiliar with Zope/Plone, you can be forgiven for not knowing that. The Zope developers (and to a lesser degree Plone) don't actually seem to like Python, and so they've reinvented many common language features and libraries. Partly this is historical...the Python that Zope was originally written in didn't have most of those features or the standard library that exists today. It's one of the problems of developing a large codebase in a language that is still in rapid flux and doesn't mind throwing out backward compatibility (my Perl code written before Zope existed still runs on modern Perl, while practically none of my Python code from 1.5 through 2.2 runs today unmodified).

But, regardless of the very sound reasons for it to be the way it is, it's a very intimidating codebase, and a really good case study in the "reinvent everything" mindset. (It's quite powerful, and I've worked with several of the guys who built it, as I did contract work for Zope Corp for a few years, and I have the utmost respect for their talent and intellect. They're some of the smartest developers I've ever met. But it's not quite like anything else I've ever seen when it comes to having a learning cliff, even with some pre-existing Python knowledge.)

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Re:PG: Arc Likely To Be Open-Sourced This Winter by ivankirigin on Tuesday January 15, 2008 @03:06PM (#98802)

Yah, I assumed they were doing something fancy, not knowing what they actually are doing.

I'm told a great place to read good code, both Python and C, is to read the code that makes Python.

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Re:PG: Arc Likely To Be Open-Sourced This Winter by tjr on Wednesday January 16, 2008 @02:11PM (#99389)

Yes, C is another good example. The language is fairly small, and it's not terribly difficult to learn the language itself and write your own programs. But to be able to look at an arbitrary piece of C code and understand all of the implications is another matter entirely.

This is true of any language to some degree, although some are worse than others, and if the code was purposefully written in some non-traditional way it can be even harder.

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Re:PG: Arc Likely To Be Open-Sourced This Winter by ivankirigin on Wednesday January 16, 2008 @03:47PM (#99432)

It is most certainly not true about C++.

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Re:PG: Arc Likely To Be Open-Sourced This Winter by tjr on Wednesday January 16, 2008 @06:36PM (#99536)

Touche'; I should have grouped my sentences differently. C++ is not a small, easy-to-learn language.

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Re:PG: Arc Likely To Be Open-Sourced This Winter by ivankirigin on Thursday January 17, 2008 @01:35AM (#99667)

I'm reminded of Duff's Device http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duff%27s_device

  send(to, from, count)
  register short *to, *from;
  register count;
  {
    register n = (count + 7) / 8;
    switch (count % 8) {
    case 0: do { *to = *from++;
    case 7:      *to = *from++;
    case 6:      *to = *from++;
    case 5:      *to = *from++;
    case 4:      *to = *from++;
    case 3:      *to = *from++;
    case 2:      *to = *from++;
    case 1:      *to = *from++;
               } while (--n > 0);
    }
  }

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