Why Python does *SLICING* the way it does??

[Peter Hansen]

Rocco Moretti wrote:
> Steve Holden wrote:
>> The principle of least surprise is all very well, but "needless 
>> surprise of newbies" is a dangerous criterion to adopt for programming 
>> language design and following it consistently would lead to a mess 
>> like Visual Basic, which grew by accretion until Microsoft realized it 
>> was no longer tenable and broke backward compatibility.
>... 
> But I agree, having "the easiest thing for newbies" as your sole 
> criterion for language design is a road to madness, for no other reason 
> than that newbies don't stay newbies forever.

If Visual BASIC is the example of "easiest thing for newbies",
then it disproves your theory already.  I think VB newbies
*do* stay newbies forever (or as long as they are using just VB).

-Peter