[Info-vax] Python for x86?

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 4/17/2023 3:00 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Simon Clubley  <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>> On 2023-04-14, bill <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 4/14/2023 1:46 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>> My point is that Python has a major thing going for it in that it is
>>>> relatively easy to learn and use by people who are not professional
>>>> programmers or professional sysadmins.
>>>
>>> And if all there was to programming was syntax that might be a good
>>> thing.  But it isn't and having all these totally unqualified asses
>>> writing "programs" is certainly not a good thing.
>>
>> That is a totally out of touch and _extremely_ elitist thing to say Bill.
>>
>> We are talking about applications and areas that have skilled domain
>> knowledge experts, but who are not computer programmers. What you
>> appear to be saying is that these people are not allowed to use their
>> expertise until they become C or C++ experts.
> 
> I don't think it is elitist or out of touch at all.
> 
> 25 years ago, those skilled domain knowledge experts would be sitting down
> with a programmer and telling the programmer what they wanted, and the
> programmer would be saying things like "Would it be okay if we did it in
> THIS order because it would be faster?" and things like "If this value is
> zero, it's not going to work, so will this ever be zero?"  There would be
> a team with the programmer and the subject matter expert.
> 
> Now more likely we have SMEs writing code and I hate to say it but this is
> often a very very bad idea.  "It's okay, I can use Matlab for the database
> engine!"  I wish I were joking about that but I am not.

"shadow IT" is a real problem. Adhoc hacked code with no
development process that is impossible to maintain, contains security 
vulnerabilities, performs poorly etc.etc..

But it is not all types of programming that requires a formal
development process.

Sure for the major application that are doing something important
and are expected to live for 10-20-30-40 years years, then it
should be a given.

But there are other types of programming:
* the finance person that need to automate some stuff
   in Excel and do it in VBA
* the finance person that want to see how various
   interest scenarios impact the budget and do it
   in Python
* the sys admin that need to automate some processes
   and do it in shell/Python
* the sys admin that need to move a lot of stuff around
   as a one time thing and do it in shell/Python
* the data person that need to export a lot of data from
   some data sources and load them into a DWH and do it
   in Python
* the data science person that need to try out hundreds
   of different forecast models to find the best model and
   do it in Python/R/Matlab
etc.

In those cases the formal development process does not
make any sense. It takes too long time and cost too much
money.

Arne