New user's initial thoughts / criticisms of Python

[Joshua Landau]

On 9 November 2013 13:08, John von Horn <j.h69 at btinternet.com> wrote:
> I'm Mr. Noobie here, I've just started easing into Python (2.7.4) and am
> enjoying working along to some youtube tutorials. I've done a little
> programming in the past.
>
> I've just got a few thoughts I'd like to share and ask about:
>
> * Why not allow floater=float(int1/int2) - rather than floater=float
> (int1)/float(int2)?
>
> Give me a float (or an error message) from evaluating everything in the
> brackets. Don't make me explicitly convert everything myself (unless I
> want to)

In Python 2, `int1/int2` does integer division. So
`float(that_result)` gives a truncated float.
`int1/float(int2)` obviously avoids this by dividing by a float.

If `float(int1/int2)` were to return the same value, `float` could not
be a normal function, and would have to be magic. Magic is bad.
Fortunately, Python 3 does the sane thing and just does floating-point
division by default. Great, eh?

> * No sign of a select .. case statement
>
> Another useful tool in the programmer's toolbox
>
> Select DayofWeek
>
>         case "mon"
>
>         ...
>
> end select

`select` is quite an odd statement, in that in most cases it's just a
weaker variant of `if`. By the time you're at the point where a
`select` is actually more readable you're also at the point where a
different control flow is probably a better idea. Things like
dictionaries or a variables pointing to functions are really useful
and can be encapsulated in a class quite well. This is a bit more
advanced but largely more rigorous.

But most of the time the idea is just that an `if` is more explicit,
and it's not like a `case` statement can be optimised as it can in
lower-level languages with simpler datatypes.

> * Call me pedantic by why do we need a trailing comma for a list of one
> item? Keep it intuitive and allow lstShopping=[] or ["Bread"] or
> ["Bread", "Milk","Hot Chocolate"] I don't like ["Bread",]. It bugs me.

You don't.

You might be confused because you need to write `("hello",)`, but
that's because the *comma* makes a *tuple*, not the brackets. Imagine
if `2 * (1/2)` gave you `(0.5, 0.5)`!

> Is everyone happy with the way things are? Could anyone recommend a good,
> high level language for CGI work? Not sure if I'm going to be happy with
> Perl (ahhh, get him, he's mentioned Perl and is a heretic!) or Python. I
> would very much value any constructive criticism or insights.

I don't know squat about CGI, but I think Python can grow on anyone
open to the idea of programming at a high level. Not "high level" as
in "expert" but as in "using higher-level constructs", if you get the
meaning. Python implements these quite well. Your first two complaints
are not new, though.