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<Paper uid="W02-0109">
  <Title>NLTK: The Natural Language Toolkit</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
2 Choice of Programming Language
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The most basic step in setting up a practical component is choosing a suitable programming language. A number of considerations in uenced our choice. First, the language must have a shallow learning curve, so that novice programmers get immediate rewards for their efiorts. Second, the language must support rapid prototyping and a short develop/test cycle; an obligatory compilation step is a serious detraction. Third, the code should be self-documenting, with a transparent syntax and semantics. Fourth, it should be easy to write structured programs, ideally object-oriented but without the burden associated with languages like C++. Finally, the language must have an easy-to-use graphics library to support the development of graphical user interfaces.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> In surveying the available languages, we believe that Python ofiers an especially good flt to the above requirements. Python is an object-oriented scripting language developed by Guido van Rossum and available on all platforms (www.python.org). Python ofiers a shallow learning curve; it was designed to be easily learnt by children (van Rossum, 1999). As an interpreted language, Python is suitable for rapid prototyping. Python code is exceptionally readable, and it has been praised as \executable pseudocode.&amp;quot; Python is an object-oriented language, but not punitively so, and it is easy to encapsulate data and methods inside Python classes. Finally, Python has an interface to the Tk graphics toolkit (Lundh, 1999), and writing graphical interfaces is straightforward.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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