While thinking about those requirements I quickly thought of a concept I saw in Python: Try to call find a callable method, otherwise do the default action. In Python you can use ‘getattr(…)’ to get a possible method of a class and with ‘callable(…)’ you can check if the method is actually a method.

You get something like this on your dispatcher object:

def Dispatch(self, methodName, arguments=None)
   method = getattr(self, methodName, None)
   if callable( method ): method( arguments )

I implemented this extensible architecture in exactly the same way. It was fairly easy to do, painless and it is extensible.

Learning multiple programming languages/concepts pay off!

The most powerful feature of Python, in my opinion, is the ‘slice’ operation: It allows you to efficiently select a portion of a collection by providing 2 indexes.

For example:

>>> word = 'Hello, World'
>>> word
'Hello, World'
>>> word[6:]
'World'
>>> word[1:2]
'e'
>>> word[-5:]
'World'

If I ever had to write an interpreter, I would write it in Python, because of the ‘slice’ operation it is a natural thing to do.

Another thing that I like about Python is that it is a dynamic language. You can do some really cool stuff like: ‘runtime dynamic method invocation’. It is supported in C#, however, it is painful and unnatural.

One thing I don’t like is that you are forced to use ‘self’ as an argument on every instance method. I understand the concept but in my opinion it to much of a hassle.

For me personally, learning Python gave me more insight into the problems I encounter daily in C#, because I learned to solve the same problems in different ways, which might be more efficient.

My conclusion is: Every developer should think about learning multiple programming languages, preferably not in the same family (like C based languages), so he/she is able to select the right tool for the job and keep an open mind. That is it for now, I hope I will have some time to write something cool in Python.

I am really looking forward to write some programs in this powerful language. I will keep you posted!