Perhaps I am just dumb
Joshua Macy
l0819m0v0smfm001 at sneakemail.com
Sat Feb 9 20:42:33 EST 2002
wooks wrote:
>>One of the basic philosophies of Python design is that it is wrong for
>>the language to guess when presented with something that's ambiguous.
>>
>
> Which seems to be the opposite of the Perl philosophy - we will try to
> do the right thing.
>
>
>>That something is "automagical" is usually a swear word in Python. This
>>can make Python seem hairier than other languages which cheerfully take
>>a stab at what the designers think you may have wanted, but the Python
>>belief is that those languages are leading you down the garden path, and
>>sooner rather than later you'll be bitten by the subtlety that the other
>>language tried to gloss over.
>>
>>
>
> Hmmm. The good thing about the Perl approch is that (if you read the
> right resource) you get an explanation of the process via it tries to
> do the right thing, which is very effective at getting the conceptual
> message across.
>
Yeah, I came to Python from Perl, too, and I used to think that all
that context sensitivity was the cat's pyjamas--but after the second
two-day debugging session caused by Perl guessing wrong (or my guessing
wrong about what Perl would guess), I wasn't so thrilled. I actually
tried Python because I bought the O'Reilly book on Advanced Perl
Programming, and in the author's intro he said really nice things about
Python. I went out and looked at Python online, then bought Programming
Python, and never looked back. The Perl book is still sitting unread on
my shelf....
>
> I was very specific. Is there a forum for the dumber less demanding
> Python user? I got answers that I consider helpful. Thanks to you and
> Sheila.
>
Well, glad to be of help.
Joshua
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