Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages

On Wed, 03 Apr 2024 17:16:31 +0100
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> writes:

David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:

On 03/04/2024 02:23, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

It’s bloody horrible Python even when wrapped correctly. I think
Python’s version of the conditional expression is a complete
abortion.

>
That's probably the reason almost no one uses it.  That post is the
first time I have ever seen conditional expressions outside of a brief
mention in a tutorial on Python conditionals showing how to write
normal conditionals in the language.  I think Python stole this one
from Perl.

>
No, Perl's conditional expressions use the same syntax as C's.
>
As for whether Python's conditional expression syntax, it's not clear
that (cond ? expr1 : expr2) is better or worse than (expr1 if cond else
expr2) (unless you happen to be familiar with one of them).

>
I’ve been familiar with both for years and I think the Python version is
awful; in particular the ordering is a bizarre choice. The PEP where
they worked out the design acknowledges this but then they went ahead
and did it anyway...

I believe its known as being different for the sake of being different which
is closely related to change for changes sake. Its the reason screwed up the
WIndows GUI - a new generation of devs had to prove their could be different
to the previous one regardless of how badly their new version sucked. Or in
more general cases - we've all seen new managers come in and change processes
just to prove they were doing something.