Alien whitespace eating nanovirus strikes again!

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <375536C2.DD917F99 at prescod.net>,
Paul Prescod  <paul at prescod.net> wrote:
>
>I consider it a compliment that he can't find anything real to point out
>as Python's contribution to language fascism but I also find it
>distressing that he feels the need to sow the seeds of fear, uncertainty
>and doubt in the minds of would-be Python users. The Python feature that
>most of us (in retrospect, unnecessarily) worry about before trying Python
>is the whitespace handling. Larry can only turn people off of Python by
>suggesting that that is Python's central feature or philosophy.

I disagree with your parenthetical comment.  I wouldn't call myself an
"expert" Python programmer by any stretch of the imagination, but I've
written a fair bit of it in connection with a multi-person project over
the past four months.  As a seasoned programmer of many years and many
languages, I've disagreed with almost all the whines that have been
brought against Python (e.g. the stupid "=" vs. "==" thread), but this
is one point that still annoys me.

Oh, I've gotten used to it, no question about that, and I even
appreciate the readability when it comes to working over someone else's
code (which is what I've mostly been doing).  But the whitespace problem
is a real PITA when it comes time to make a change to the structure of a
program -- it's an investment I don't mind making when I'm doing "real"
programming, but when I'm making a bunch of quick, fiddly changes to
debug something it continually gets in my way.

I'm not trying to push a change, mind you.  I'm just pointing out that
IMAO the whitespace issue is a legitimate complaint.  There are plenty
of real issues to be worked on, though.
-- 
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