Does Python really follow its philosophy of "Readability counts"?

[Mark Wooding]

Scott David Daniels <Scott.Daniels at Acm.Org> writes:

> Nowhere in this discussion is a point that I find telling:  Python's
> policy of accessibility to the full data structure allows simple
> implementation of debugging software, rather than the black arcana
> that is the normal fare of trying to weld debuggers into the compilers.

That's a very good point, actually.  It also means that, even without a
formal `debugger', you can easily write diagnostic code which dumps the
internal state of some interesting object -- say at the interactive
prompt, or in a hacky test program.

One might argue that `industrial strength' modules ought to have such
diagnostic abilities built in; but they often either don't tell you what
you actually wanted to know in your current situation, or tell you way
more than was necessary, or both.  Either that, or they're just too
complicated to use.

Thank you for that observation!

-- [mdw]