merits of Lisp vs Python

[Mark Tarver]

How do you compare Python to Lisp? What specific advantages do you
think that one has over the other?

Note I'm not a Python person and I have no axes to grind here. This is
just a question for my general education.

Mark

[Paul Rubin]

Brian Adkins <lo************ ***@gmail.comwr ites:

With prices of dedicated servers and virtual private servers so cheap,
why would anyone get a hosting account without root access?

Because it turns you into a sysadmin instead of letting specialists
handle all the OS stuff so you can concentrate on your application.

Also, no VPS where you have to run your own httpd instance (and
usually your own database if you're using one) can possibly be as
cheap as a virtual host where you're sharing the same httpd with
thousands of other sites.

[Brian Adkins]

Paul Rubin wrote:

Brian Adkins <lo************ ***@gmail.comwr ites:

>With prices of dedicated servers and virtual private servers so cheap,
why would anyone get a hosting account without root access?

Because it turns you into a sysadmin instead of letting specialists
handle all the OS stuff so you can concentrate on your application.

I'm not sure what "OS stuff" you're referring to, but my interactions
with my dedicated host are quite similar to when I had a shared hosting
account (except I never have to contact the hosting company like I used
to with a shared account - it just keeps humming along).

Besides, this whole thing got started with John resurrecting the
"industrial strength" argument. I hardly think a shared hosting account
would be considered "industrial strength". If you're not willing to deal
with a dedicated server, then I don't think you're serious about
"industrial strength", right? Not to mention the fact that none of this
has anything to do with the "industrial strengthness" of the language.

>
Also, no VPS where you have to run your own httpd instance (and
usually your own database if you're using one) can possibly be as
cheap as a virtual host where you're sharing the same httpd with
thousands of other sites.

And you *want* to share the same httpd with thousands of other sites?

I can relate to what you're saying. I tried the shared hosting thing
originally, but the saying, "you get what you pay for" holds some truth
here.

Maybe y'all should change the thread to "Why don't shared hosting
companies treat Python customers better?" or something along those
lines. We seem to have drifted from "Princess Bride" quotes and the
merits of Lisp vs. Python ;)

[John Nagle]

Paul Rubin wrote:

Brian Adkins <lo************ ***@gmail.comwr ites:

>>With prices of dedicated servers and virtual private servers so cheap,
why would anyone get a hosting account without root access?

Because it turns you into a sysadmin instead of letting specialists
handle all the OS stuff so you can concentrate on your application.

Exactly. I want to outsource these headaches to someone who's
doing it for a thousand servers and has a standardized "just works"
configuration that's Python-friendly. It's inefficient to work
through all these issues for a single server. I have better things
to do with my time.

When starting out with this project, I'd made the assumption that
Python was a stable, working, well-supported technology, like Perl
hosting. It isn't.

It's really amazing how stable Perl hosting is. I have a site,
"downside.c om", that's been running a Perl application since 2000,
with essentially no attention since 2002. It's been migrated to new
servers twice by the hosting provider, without my having had to change
anything. Or even do anything. It's talking to a MySQL database,
going out and retrieving files from the SEC, parsing complex documents,
gettting a feed from NASDAQ, responding to queries, and doing
quite a bit of work. When developing that, I had no serious problems with Perl.

Python, on the other hand, is uphill all the way. Constant trouble
with version issues, especially with C components called from Python.
MySQLdb, M2Crypto, SSL - they all have platform/version
incompatibility problems. I just spent three days making M2Crypto
work on a new Linux server with a different Red Hat version.
Neither Python's packaging tools nor the platform's packaging
tools deal adequately with these issues.

The language is fine. It's those weakly-supported packages out
there in the cold that are the problem. (I definitely agree with
Guido that SWIG is a bad idea. I've been combing through the 24,000
lines of C generated by SWIG for M2Crypto, figuring out the compile
errors and what caused them. This is neither fun nor desirable.)

I get the feeling that Python isn't used much for general web hosting
any more. Only about two messages per month on this newsgroup mention
a hosting-related issue.

One wonders how many people try and give up.

John Nagle

[Brian Adkins]

John Nagle wrote:

Paul Rubin wrote:

>Brian Adkins <lo************ ***@gmail.comwr ites:

>>With prices of dedicated servers and virtual private servers so cheap,
why would anyone get a hosting account without root access?

Because it turns you into a sysadmin instead of letting specialists
handle all the OS stuff so you can concentrate on your application.

Exactly. I want to outsource these headaches to someone who's
doing it for a thousand servers and has a standardized "just works"
configuration that's Python-friendly. It's inefficient to work
through all these issues for a single server. I have better things
to do with my time.

When starting out with this project, I'd made the assumption that
Python was a stable, working, well-supported technology, like Perl
hosting. It isn't.

It's really amazing how stable Perl hosting is. I have a site,
"downside.c om", that's been running a Perl application since 2000,
with essentially no attention since 2002. It's been migrated to new
servers twice by the hosting provider, without my having had to change
anything. Or even do anything. It's talking to a MySQL database,
going out and retrieving files from the SEC, parsing complex documents,
gettting a feed from NASDAQ, responding to queries, and doing
quite a bit of work. When developing that, I had no serious problems
with Perl.

This may sound like I'm baiting you, but it's a sincere question. If
your experience with Perl was so good, why did you decide to pursue
Python? Trouble free hosting and no problems in development - sounds
like it worked out well for you.

I do think that "hosting for the masses" is geared toward PHP, Perl,
..NET, etc.

I primarily develop in Ruby on Rails (I'm here 'cause the original
thread was posted to c.l.p and c.l.l) and I admit that trying that in a
shared hosting environment will probably lead to frustration, but once I
bit the bullet and got a VPS, and later a dedicated server, it was
smooth sailing, and the performance is *so* much better.

A bit of a learning curve getting Apache, Mongrel, MySQL, etc. up and
running (which was a fixed amount of time), then it just runs. In my
case, the productivity gains over my previous environment
(Java/Spring/Hibernate) was enough to justify a little pain for long
term gains. Switching from the VPS to the dedicated server with a
different company was easy because I already had the recipe to get a
server setup.

>
Python, on the other hand, is uphill all the way. Constant trouble
with version issues, especially with C components called from Python.
MySQLdb, M2Crypto, SSL - they all have platform/version
incompatibility problems. I just spent three days making M2Crypto
work on a new Linux server with a different Red Hat version.
Neither Python's packaging tools nor the platform's packaging
tools deal adequately with these issues.

Now I understand your original post a bit better. Sounds like you've had
a fair amount of frustration.

The language is fine. It's those weakly-supported packages out
there in the cold that are the problem. (I definitely agree with
Guido that SWIG is a bad idea. I've been combing through the 24,000
lines of C generated by SWIG for M2Crypto, figuring out the compile
errors and what caused them. This is neither fun nor desirable.)

I get the feeling that Python isn't used much for general web hosting
any more. Only about two messages per month on this newsgroup mention
a hosting-related issue.

It could be that the web folks are concentrated elsewhere - maybe a
TurboGears or Django forum? Are you just using Python with CGI, or with
a web framework? If the latter, I expect the framework folks could be
quite helpful.

>
One wonders how many people try and give up.

John Nagle

[Ken Tilton]

John Nagle wrote:

Brian Adkins wrote:

>John Nagle wrote:

>If you want to restart a debate, please go back and reply to some
serious post in the thread - don't hijack mine for your own evil
purposes and cut out the good parts - did you even see the movie?

If you want to post jokes...

fer chrissakes, it was the OP of "means what you think it means" who was
obviously doing Princess Bride and being reasonably funny, Brian just
missed that it was deliberate.

, try ...

.....comp.lang. lisp. All the SBCL bug reports are starting to drag down
the mood of this NG.

kt

--
Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and
I'm happy to state I finally won out over it.
-- Elwood P. Dowd

In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.
-- Elwood's Mom

[Paul Rubin]

Brian Adkins <lo************ ***@gmail.comwr ites:

This may sound like I'm baiting you, but it's a sincere question. If
your experience with Perl was so good, why did you decide to pursue
Python? Trouble free hosting and no problems in development - sounds
like it worked out well for you.

Er, because the Perl language itself is up there with Vogon poetry in
bletcherousness ?

[Brian Adkins]

Ken Tilton wrote:

John Nagle wrote:

>Brian Adkins wrote:

>>John Nagle wrote:
If you want to restart a debate, please go back and reply to some
serious post in the thread - don't hijack mine for your own evil
purposes and cut out the good parts - did you even see the movie?

If you want to post jokes...

fer chrissakes, it was the OP of "means what you think it means" who was
obviously doing Princess Bride and being reasonably funny,

Turns out John is having quite a tough time with Python web hosting (the
thread has split off to a c.l.p only fork), so I'm going to cut him some
slack. Maybe with some lovin' we can woo him over to c.l.l ;)

Brian just
missed that it was deliberate.

D'oh!

, try ...

....comp.lang.l isp. All the SBCL bug reports are starting to drag down
the mood of this NG.

kt

[John Nagle]

Brian Adkins wrote:

Ken Tilton wrote:

>John Nagle wrote:

Turns out John is having quite a tough time with Python web hosting (the
thread has split off to a c.l.p only fork), so I'm going to cut him some
slack. Maybe with some lovin' we can woo him over to c.l.l ;)

Been there, done that. I've actually used an original refrigerator
sized Symbolics LISP machine.

I tend to think of Python as a LISP with infix syntax.
We have a better handle on what to put in a dynamic language now, and
Python does a good job in that direction. I'm happy with the
language; it's the integration with external components that isn't
working.

John Nagle

[Stephen Eilert]

On Mar 8, 5:23 am, John Nagle <n...@animats.c omwrote:

Brian Adkins wrote:

Ken Tilton wrote:

John Nagle wrote:

Turns out John is having quite a tough time with Python web hosting (the
thread has split off to a c.l.p only fork), so I'm going to cut him some
slack. Maybe with some lovin' we can woo him over to c.l.l ;)

Been there, done that. I've actually used an original refrigerator
sized Symbolics LISP machine.

I tend to think of Python as a LISP with infix syntax.
We have a better handle on what to put in a dynamic language now, and
Python does a good job in that direction. I'm happy with the
language; it's the integration with external components that isn't
working.

John Nagle

OMG! And I thought the thread was dead!

Necromancers! Run!!!

[Chris Mellon]

On 3/8/07, Dennis Lee Bieber <wl*****@ix.net com.comwrote:

On Thu, 08 Mar 2007 06:13:15 GMT, John Nagle <na***@animats. com>
declaimed the following in comp.lang.pytho n:

When starting out with this project, I'd made the assumption that
Python was a stable, working, well-supported technology, like Perl
hosting. It isn't.

It is interesting how your text seems to blame "Python" (the
language) when comparing not to "Perl" (the language) but to a service
field of "Perl hosting".

At the least, be fair and use the phrase "Python hosting" in any
place you'd have used "Perl hosting"...
(I note in passing you did have a comment about Python, the language,
being good... but anyone reading quickly would tend to interpret, say
the part quoted above, as "Python is unstable, doesn't work, and
unsupported" -- none of which, in my experience, is true... Low-cost web
hosting with Python is a different kettle of fish [chowder, probably
<G>])

Mr. Nagle has a history of phrasing his personal problems as if they
were vast, sweeping, general issues affecting the entire industry. The
original post, and several followups, referred to *real* hosting
provides, with the emphasis, and in the context of "industrial
strength". Any *real* hosting provider is going to support whatever
language and environment I tell them to, because I'm going to pay them
a lot of money for excellent support and if they give me any trouble I
will go with someone who provides what I want.
What was *meant* was low priced, zero maintenance, reasonably reliable
consumer level hosting. Thats a totally different market, it's not
"industrial strength", and it doesn't merit the emphasis on *real*
provider. And it is true that in that realm Python is not well
represented.