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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Python (was Re: I did not inhale)
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2024 11:38:05 +0200
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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.