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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Python (was Re: I did not inhale)
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2024 16:55:00 +0200
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On 16/08/2024 17:02, Kalevi Kolttonen wrote:
> In comp.unix.programmer Kaz Kylheku <643-408-1753@kylheku.com> wrote:
>> On 2024-08-15, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>> On Thu, 15 Aug 2024 19:48:36 -0000 (UTC), Kalevi Kolttonen wrote:
>>>
>>>> The last I checked, the O'Reilly Python book is just absolutely
>>>> *MASSIVE*. The language has a huge number of features now ...
>>>
>>> No, it hasn’t. The core language reference spec is only a small fraction
>>> of, say, the Java language spec.
>>>
>>> It’s just that you can do so many things with Python. And that is down to
>>> the huge variety of off-the-shelf addon libraries that build on that core
>>> language spec. It has to be a strong, very solidly founded core in order
>>> to be such a versatile basis for these addons, and it is.
>>
>> That's idiotic; you're saying that the standard library packages of
>> Python are not part of Python, and do not contribute to its size.
> 
> You seem to have a point. The core of C language is also small. I
> guess they even said in the original K & R book that C is a small
> language best described by a small book.
> 
> But in order to do anything with C, you need to know the standard
> libraries. They have grown bigger and bigger during all these
> years. One could also well argue that to program on UNIX, you also
> need to know all the POSIX libraries.
> 

Absolute nonsense.

In order to use a programming language for a given task, you need to 
know the basics of the language and libraries appropriate for the task. 
You most certainly do not need to know all about the language, or all 
about all the libraries provided as standard for the language or the 
host OS.

You usually need to know /some/ of a language's standard libraries, but 
far from all of it.  And unless you are writing a compiler, you don't 
need to know all of the core language for most languages.  And that 
applies equally to languages with relatively small cores and standard 
libraries, like C.

Without looking it up, what does the C standard library "fegetmode" 
function do?  What does "static" mean inside square brackets in a C 
function prototype?  What are the differences in the rules for integer 
constants in C90 and C99?  What functions are in the POSIX header 
<libgen.h> ?

Do you think people "can't do anything with C" if they can't answer 
those questions?


> So it is indeed a vague question of what belongs in given programming
> languages.
> 

That is true, but not for the reason you gave.