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Originally Posted by DrChiper
Do not be afraid of using pointers. The only thing is, like children, you have to keep your eye on them ...
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Pointers honestly make programming much easier. I always feel constrained and limited when working on a project that isn't C/C++. That said the point is real and good developers don't always understand them because their area of expertise isn't C/C++.
Concepts like pointers and manual memory management require a certain design considerations. These are difficult concepts and it's difficult to do right. If it's not something you employ regularly it becomes a barrier to entry because it's additional things that you need to learn before you can contribute.
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Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
In my experience, a dynamic language like python has other big benefits - rapid prototyping and very easy long term code maintenance being the biggest.
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It has a lot of benefits. Code maintenance I'll disagree with because it really comes down to the design more so than anything else. That said I will concede that Python makes proper design easier. But I do think projects using a non-dynamic language can be easy to maintain.
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Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
I remember discussing rewriting Sigil in python with you when you were first taking over from Valloric, it's a pity that never happened.
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I started but dropped it. Sigils code base doesn't translate to Python at all. The way it's designed and the underlying concepts just don't work with Python. It ended up being I could spend some time working on it or spending more time reimplementing what's already there.
Taking over Sigil and immediately throwing all the code away and starting over didn't really feel like taking over... At that point I would be working on a completely different and new project. The only thing in common would be the name.
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Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
If it were in python, I'd have been willing to fold it into calibre and take over development. As it is, with the current code base, over the long term, it would actually be less effort for me to re-implement something like Sigil than maintain it.
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Honestly I don't think that would be necessary (though it would probably happen) if Sigil was written in Python because it would have more contributors.