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[Hendrik van Rooyen]

On Monday 31 August 2009 11:31:34 Piet van Oostrum wrote:

> But ultimately it is also very much a matter of taste, preference and
> habit.

This is true, but there is another reason that I posted - I have noticed that 
there seems to be a tendency amongst newcomers to the group to go to great 
lengths to find something that will do exactly what they want, irrespective 
of the inherent complexity or lack thereof of that which they are trying to 
do.

Now I cannot understand why this is - one could say that it is caused by an 
eagerness to understand all the corners of the tool that is python, but 
somehow it does not feel like that to me - I see it almost as a crisis of 
confidence - as if the newbie lacks the self confidence to believe that he or 
she is capable of doing anything independently.  

So whenever I can, I try to encourage people to just do it their way, and to 
see what happens, and to hack using the interactive interpreter, to build 
confidence by experimenting and making mistakes, and realizing that when you 
have made a mistake, it is not the end of the world,  - you can fix it and 
move on.

Don't know if this rant makes any sense...

- Hendrik