PEP scepticism

[stevencooper at isomedia.com]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 08:57:56PM +0400, Roman Suzi wrote:
> On 28 Jun 2001, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> 
> >This a general warning against the second system syndrom in Python.
> >Maybe I am a hypocritical sceptic, but I have the impression that
> >some feeping creatureism is introduced into Python.
> >This might reduce the main advantage of Python to be clear and easy
> >and mostly have one good formulation on how to express what you want
> >to program in a structured way.
> >
> >Examples are:
> >	- augmented Assigments
> >	- Lists comprehensions
> >	- Simple Generators
> 
> I can't see these as bad things which make Python worse!
> If you do not want to use them - please do so.
> 
> 
---end quoted text---

FWIW - I totally agree with the original premise.  If Python already
offers a reasonable way to do something I would vote for not adding an
alternative.

Keystroke reduction saves the original programmer time.  But it costs
other people more time when they read the code.  The more language
idioms that exist to support a particular need the more chance the
code reader will have to work harder to understand the code writer.

Manditory indentation policy was a brilliant choice, IMO, precisely
because it assured that one programmer's style would be readable to
another.  The same applies to language constructs.  The fewer choices
that are available the more likely it is that the code-reader will
understand the work of the code-writer.

Regards,
Steve

-- 

                  \_O<  \_O<  \_O<
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 Steve Cooper          Redmond, WA