timothy murphy wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 10:51:11AM +0200, Javier Bezos wrote:
> > Python can be modified only if you know C, but
> > LaTeX can be modified simply if you know LaTeX (and maybe TeX).
>
> This is a truly bizarre comparison.
>
> First of all, the number of people who know C
> is an order of magnitude large than those who know TeX/LaTeX .
>
> Secondly, it is in fact easy to fiddle with Python files
> without knowing any Python, let alone C.
> I'm on a mailman-user list,
> and people seem to spend their entire lives doing this.

i think you're missing javier's point: he was comparing "modifying
latex" (easy) to "modifying python-the-executable", which (i would
assume) _does_ require some kind of programming experience, since
little of it will be written in python itself...

i don't believe the point is particularly strong, but it's stronger
than you seem to think.