Python indentation deters newbies?

[Peter Hansen]

Richard Hanson wrote:
> For me, a not insignificant part of Python's genius *is* the
> indentation. When I used C and C++ I was a stickler (pedant? :-)
> ) for "proper" indentation -- which was a PITA. So -- I took to
> Python's indentation like a duck to water.

That's been exactly my situation as well, which leads me to
theorize that those who react most strongly against Python's
syntactically significant indentation are those who were the
least consistent or, uh, "anal" about making sure their code
conformed to conventions.

The corollary would be that those who already wrote code which
would have been accepted by a compiler which checked indentation,
are those who hardly blink when encountering Python,
other than to say "Of course!" as you did, and carry on writing
code just as they used to, with a mild feeling of dismay that
it never occurred to them before to question the supposed
value of braces or begin/end tags.

-Peter