“There was a project at Lawrence Livermore National Labs where many years ago they went down this path for scripting and controlling very large numerical calculations.”
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Other Guido van Rossum Quotes
Now, it's my belief that Python is a lot easier than to teach to students programming and teach them C or C++ or Java at the same time because all the details of the languages are so much harder. Other scripting languages really don't work very well there either.
Guido van Rossum 
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I have this hope that there is a better way. Higher-level tools that actually let you see the structure of the software more clearly will be of tremendous value.
Guido van Rossum
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I would guess that the decision to create a small special purpose language or use an existing general purpose language is one of the toughest decisions that anyone facing the need for a new language must make.
Guido van Rossum
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The second stream of material that is going to come out of this project is a programming environment and a set of programming tools where we really want to focus again on the needs of the newbie. This environment is going to have to be extremely user-friendly.
Guido van Rossum
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