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November 27, 2006
Sludge off the mountain, and Python and PHP
Is Python 2.3 compatible with version 2.2? How about PHP 5.1 with PHP 4.4?
In an ideal world, the answer to every such compatability question would be "yes, it is" but it's not always quite that simple. Python's upwards compatability is excellent - as a language, it was designed for the purpose for which it's used to this day, and it's not overburdened with facilities, especially redundant ones, that make onward extension awkward. PHP, alas, started as "Personal Home Pages: and has grown to something much more powerful ... meaning that a few of the (then excellent) early decisions have had to be revisited and there have been a few compatability issues - sometimes solved via the php.ini configuration file. (register_globals and magic_quotes come to mind ...).
However, there's always the exception to disprove the rule ... and I've been talking about Python compatability today, and how the "yield" keyword was added for generators. "That would only be a problem if you happened to have a variable of that name" says I. "We do, quite often" says one of my trainees. "We're very often forcasting the yield of sludge running off a mountain in wet weather"
Posted by gje at November 27, 2006 06:28 PM