Fat and happy Pythonistas (was Re: Replacement for keyword 'global' good idea? ...)

[Dan Sommers]

On Sat, 6 Aug 2005 11:53:04 -0600,
"John Roth" <newsgroups at jhrothjr.com> wrote:

> What I want to see in Python 3000 is an AST based language that lets
> the editors do the pretty printing. Do you want automatic indenting or
> would you prefer end statements? It's an editor formatting option. The
> AST neither knows or cares. Don't want to see self?  Editor formatting
> option. The AST knows what scope each identifier belongs to because
> it's right there in the text. No need for rules that you have to
> learn, sometimes the hard way.

s/AST based language/machine code/g

s/Editor formatting option/high level language/g

After all, Lisp, FORTRAN, and Python are nothing more than Stupid Text
Editor Tricks for manipulating my CPU's register file.

Not everyone who would like to write a program has the skills (or the
time) to develop their own high level language in which to do so.

> I find the notion that there should be one obviously right way to do
> something to be a good design principle ...

This idea is directly at odds with the one above.  Your vision for
Python 3000 has as many Right Ways to do everything are there are
permutations of configuration options in the text formatter.

Regards,
Dan

-- 
Dan Sommers
<http://www.tombstonezero.net/dan/>