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Java has a real spec. Python has documentation, but it isn't really sufficient for a spec, and for the most part alternative implementations copy down to the last implementation detail (gc details notwithstanding). A test suite is probably better than what it has.

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It depends what you mean by "better".

Maybe Python has lousy spec but as I recall, the documentation does include a BNF breakdown of what Python is.

A test suite can be good for a lot of things BUT it cannot be a specification, it cannot be even sort-of a specification. Test suites only "prove a negative", only prove that an application won't do X. A specification is at least a rough assertion of a positive, that a language does follow this pattern.

Yeah, there's an EBNF syntax description. I must have missed the part where the GP thought that's all that was necessary for a "real spec". I guess I just disagree.

Java specifies the semantics of Java and the JVM remarkably fully. Python, not so much.

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