Dan. all:
Possibly I'm just an old fart and Python doesn't click for me, but I didn't
seriously consider it for this job. Perhaps I should, and I would welcome a
phone conversation with Dan to talk about this.
One reason is that I wrote the EROS kernel configuration tool in Python, and
I concluded that while Python did well for that, it would be difficult to
maintain for anything much larger. The main reason is that Python lacks
static typing. Also, it seems on cursory examination not to be well-suited
to manipulating binary file formats.
In fact, I have been inclined to abandon Python for kernel configuration in
the future. While Python is a fine tool and is doing the job well, the
porting effort is simplified if we can minimize the number of languages and
runtimes required to successfully native-build the EROS system. Actually,
the same argument is one of the reasons for getting out of C++.