Bools and explicitness [was Re: PyWart: The problem with "print"]

[rusi]

On Jun 6, 6:45 am, Chris Angelico <ros... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 11:37 AM, Steven D'Aprano
>
> <steve+comp.lang.pyt... at pearwood.info> wrote:
> > What prevents bugs is the skill of the people writing the code, not the
> > compiler.
>
> +1 QOTW.

In many Indian languages there is a saying: A poor dancer blames the
crooked floor. [Yeah… sounds tame in English]  -- which is probably
what Steven is saying.

However in defence of the crooked floor… <wink>

When I taught C at the university in the early 90s[1], every third/
fourth compile+run of the kids would result in 'segmentation fault' if
they were lucky enough to be on unix, and OS crashes if they were on
DOS.
At first I would rail at the kids for not doing due diligence.  Over
time I came to the conclusion that if a system is designed in such a
way that everyone is wrong, then its the system that is wrong and not
everyone.

When we switched from to python (via Scheme and a haskell-
predecessor), I dont remember ever getting a segmentation fault.

[Well once RR gave some Wx code that I tried and python core dumped.
Whether this speaks for RR or Wx or a dangerous combo...]

So yes, elegant programming languages are not proof against inelegant
programmers.
Nevertheless, programming languages can be made in a way that makes
certain class of errors harder/easier to make.

Joel Spolsky moans that:
Java is not, generally, a hard enough programming language that it can
be used to discriminate between great programmers and mediocre
programmers.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html

And Paul Graham is even more provocative:
Java programmers are not as smart as python programmers
http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html

[1] Prompted a paper in the 90s, with some modernizing modifications
http://blog.languager.org/2013/02/c-in-education-and-software-engineering.html