Label-Value (was: Re: Inheriting the @ sign from Ruby)

[Jay O'Connor]

> > The real problem is that many Python tutorials fail to explain
> > how things work (or hide it somewhere in the exercises), but
> > that's not really Guido's fault...
>
> Tough for the new Python programmer, then.  It's nt fair to them.

Actually, it's not really that hard for the new programmer, but maybe a
little odd for a programmer coming from certain languages.  I've been
programming Python seriously for about 3 months and had no difficulty
with the concept. But I've been programming  Smalltalk for a long time,
which uses a similar approach (as does Java)

The requirement to know about such things in C and Perl really annoy me,
especially Perl which is new enough to have been designed without such
artifacts 

> While I'm brainstorming with Python grammar changes, what about a real &
> operator.  No more of this hokey is-it-modifiable-in-place-or-not
> business.  Explicit control is important.

Not really.  It just confuses the issue by adding one more piece of
syntax for he developer to remember and one more piece of un-needed
detail for the new programmer to learn.



-- 
Jay O'Connor
joconnor at cybermesa.com
http://www.cybermesa.com/~joconnor

"God himself plays the bass strings first when He tunes the soul"