Path: ...!news.nobody.at!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: David Brown 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 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 51 Message-ID: References: <20240815182717.189@kylheku.com> <20240826083330.00004760@gmail.com> <20240826155113.000005ba@gmail.com> <20240830082835.000008fa@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2024 18:54:55 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="3b8d9008b438dc7a1af6ab394661d0db"; logging-data="603242"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+eLw4cVh+fwmkcq1Uz6dyDMvtHHeUJNv4=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/102.11.0 Cancel-Lock: sha1:/yz+04T4rgfQPE7t7I2a0jdXKlk= Content-Language: en-GB In-Reply-To: <20240830082835.000008fa@gmail.com> Bytes: 4436 On 30/08/2024 17:28, John Ames wrote: > On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 11:38:05 +0200 > David Brown 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.