Python scoping

[Paul Wright]

In article <39ff9af1.6455875 at nntp.interaccess.com>,
Thaddeus L. Olczyk <olczyk at interaccess.com> wrote:
>At the same time, when I had to use C++ I've often opened the file with
>several editors and have indentation appear differently in some of
>them. I've settled to where I say I want it to appear consistent in
>emacs and notepad ( or some other similar nonformating editor ). 

Erm... what are your tab stops set to in each editor? That's an endless
source of horrible formatting. The house style for one of the internal
projects where I work insists that tabs are converted to spaces before
checking in: this is probably a Good Thing.

>The biggest thing that the python community doesn't realise is how
>much it hurts them to use indenting to determine the block structure.
>I know at least five programmers who say they will never touch python
>because of this one fact even though they consider it superior to
>alternatives in every other way.

Then they've blown the whole identation thing out of all proportion.
There are much better things to worry about when chosing a language.
Having switched to Python for most of my day to day "housekeeping" type
jobs (from Perl, which does use braces), I've found that the indentation
thing isn't a problem. The only things I've run into have been related
to tabs, and they're things which Python catches and complains about.

>I also know of two managers ( from programming ranks ) who say they
>wouldn't allow their programers to use it. They say that any language
>that requires that of it's proggrammers is probably to simplistic (
>from some previous experience I guess ).

I can't really comprehend that sort of attitude. "Too simplistic"? It
sounds almost as if they're against it because it makes things too easy.
Python is simple (and I think the lack of "begin/end" or braces is one
minor thing that makes it so), but it's certainly not a toy. Or do they
mean it sounds like a bondage-and-discipline language for beginners?
It's not that either, of course (a dynamically typed B&D language seems
like a contradiction to me).

>Should there ever come around a programming language similar to python
>but with braces or a begin/end, then python will be gone. The volume of
>people who have been avoiding python ( along with some who now use
>python ) will adapt the new language, and the momentum will be sucked
>avay from python.

As others have said, there's nothing stopping you from trying this.
Personally, I wouldn't see the point in such a language and wouldn't use
it.

-- 
----- Paul Wright ------| I keep hearing that Jesus Christ is coming, but
-paul.wright at pobox.com--| nobody knows his tour dates.
http://pobox.com/~pw201 | 	-- Michael Lucas