Re: Python (was Re: I did not inhale)

On 30/08/2024 00:57, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2024 14:24:01 +0200, David Brown wrote:
 

def foo(a, b, c) :
if a :
if b :
if c :
doThis()
>
That looks unfinished to me.  So I will add a "return" at the end (with
a single tab indent, in this case).

 A redundant “return” ... kind of like my redundant “#end” comments, except
yours work in a more restricted set of places ...

Yes - the restriction is a major advantage.  Python can check it, and there are far fewer ways for the programmer to get it wrong.

 

Don't you ever just accept that a language is the way it is, and it is
perfectly useable that way?

 Of course not.

How silly.  You should work to improve the things you can, instead of wasting effort arguing with brick walls.  If you want to get involved in the design and future of a language, that's fine, but few people have the time and skills needed or the opportunity to do it as serious paid work.  Getting worked up about the way Python blocking works is about as productive as getting worked up about the way English language spelling works.  There are countless other more useful ways to spend your time - and certainly many more enjoyable ways.

 

Or think that perhaps other people in the world know better than you do
about how they want their language to work?

 And vice versa.

It's not your language, so there is no "vice versa".

 

Has it never occurred to you that the people behind a given
language - such as Python - considered various alternatives and decided
that making it the way they did was the best choice overall for the
language they wanted?

 Barring a few obvious stupidities, yes of course they were, and are, smart
people.

When there are a number of smart, experienced and educated people involved in the decisions, "obvious stupidities" are extremely unlikely.   That's the point of involving multiple people and gathering opinions from many in the field.
There can be design decisions that don't suit /you/ - but they were not designing a language for /you/.  There can be design decisions that made sense at the time, but turned out to be unwise in the end.  Those are not "obvious stupidities", even with 20/20 hindsight.  And there can be compromises where it is known that a decision is bad in at least some ways, because it allows other better things to be done - again, not a "stupidity" even if the one aspect in isolation looks bad.