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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 18:54:54 +0200
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On 30/08/2024 17:28, John Ames wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 11:38:05 +0200
> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> 
>> 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.
> 
> Some people actually enjoy arguing on the Internet, y'know.

Up to a point, I agree.  Where would the internet be without arguments? 
Cat videos and porn, I suppose.

But sometimes I think discussions could be a little more informative and 
a little less repetitive ranting.  Occasionally it is also nice to learn 
something new from the internet.  (I actually learned from this thread 
that Python 3 is better at checking for mixed tabs and spaces than 
Python 2 was.)

> 
>> 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.
> 
> You may consider it as "unlikely" as you wish, but the fact is that
> literal whitespace has been considered Obviously Stupid in the computer-
> programming world for so long that it was the subject of a joke re: JCL
> in "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal," published in 1983.
> 
> That's not to say that "considered Obviously Stupid" is the same thing
> as "objectively wrong" - but if your argument is that all of this is on
> equal footing as Just Opinions, discounting decades of established
> opinion across the industry in preference to the opinions of the subset
> of Python developers & advocates who believe in literal whitespace as
> Unambiguously Good rather gives the lie to that.
> 

Python is a hugely popular language, with whitespace for blocks.  C, C++ 
and Java are hugely poplar languages with braces as delimiters.  I don't 
see how anyone can get an "established opinion" from that.

But to be fair, the worst case of significant whitespace /was/ obviously 
stupid - that is makefiles treating tabs and spaces differently.  The 
original author of make said himself that it was a daft idea, but 
unfortunately the utility took off in popularity so quickly that it 
could not be rectified.