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

On 29/08/2024 17:52, John Ames wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2024 14:24:01 +0200
David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
 

Don't you ever just accept that a language is the way it is, and it
is perfectly useable that way?  Or think that perhaps other people in
the world know better than you do about how they want their language
to work?  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?

 They probably did - but did they do that *because* of the point in
question, in spite of it, or without any meaningful inclination toward
or against it? There are plenty of other aspects about Python that may
tip the balance in spite of its annoyances.
 

I don't know the early history of Python, so I can't answer that.  But there can be no doubt that the BDFL and other "founding fathers" of the language were aware of the pros and cons of making white space significant for block structuring in the language, and that they actively decided to make its syntax the way it is as the best balance, in their opinions, for the expected use of the language.  However, it is also likely that they did not predict where the language would be, and how it would be used, decades later.  Maybe if they had had a crystal ball they would have designed things differently - maybe not.
/All/ languages, except perhaps Bart's private language that is only used by him, have their annoyances.  I have worked at least a little with a fair number of languages, and I've never seen one that I thought was "perfect".  But different people have different things that the like and dislike about any given language.
So if you have the choice of which language to use (many programmers do not), you pick one that has more things you like for the task in question in comparison to the things you don't like.

F'rinstance, the *very* comprehensive set of libraries make bashing out
quick utilities to do A Complex Thing often very simple. (That was the
reason I first used it - needed a quick-'n-easy way to programmatically
deliver data in a POST request from a Windows box in production, and it
beat the hell out of trying to wrap my head around Win32 network
programming.) But if the language "wins" on that score, that doesn't
mean its annoyances or flaws are any less real or worthy of complaint.
 Like, obviously it's way too late in the game for Python to change this
now. But we can still say it's stupid for them to have done it that way
in the first place. Is that a matter of opinion? Sure, but that's never
stopped anybody from expressing themselves re: any other language. (How
many people are still bitching about C being "insecure," 50+ years down
the line?)
 

You are welcome to your opinions on languages - I have plenty of my own (and I prefer explicit block delimiters - I would even go further in languages like C and insist on them in more situations).  But it's important to understand that these are opinions - the designers of Python were /not/ stupid to have made the language that way.  They just had different opinions from you, and the had a much better basis for forming those opinions than you or I.