Python was designed (was Re: Multi-threading in Python vs Java)

[rusi]

On Monday, October 21, 2013 2:13:52 PM UTC+5:30, Peter Cacioppi wrote:
> Specifically the following seems so misguided as to be deliberate trolling.

The same could be said for this below… but…

> 
> "One of the reasons multiple languages exist is because people find that 
> useful programming idioms and styles are *hard to use* or "ugly" in some 
> languages, so they create new languages with different syntax to make 
> those useful patterns easier to use."
> 
> 
> This is just profoundly wrong. If anything, different languages strive to 
> maintain common syntax. You can see foo.bar() as legal syntax meaning 
> essentially the same thing in C++, C#, Java and Python (and likely quite a 
> few other languages). There is NOT a deliberate effort to create new syntax 
> just for aesthetics, there is the exact opposite. There is a deliberate 
> effort to maintain consistency with the syntax of pre-existing languages.
> 
> 
> 
> Languages sprout up for a variety of reasons. C++ has very significant 
> functionality that doesn't exist in C. Java/C# can say the same thing to C++, 
> and Python to all of the others. 
> 
> 
> Please lets not pretend that it's all just ballpark equivalent facades 
> plastered on top of a Turing machine. New languages pop up to automate boring 
> and repetitive tasks that chew up your time in older languages. That's the
> trend - abstractions automating repetitious and error-prone tasks. 
> 
> 
> 
> Not "hey, this syntax isn't too my taste, I'm going to toodle it up".


… but I am not going to do so.
Instead I reiterate:

The whole point of studying programming language semantics is just so that we can distinguish between the 'just toodle it up' differences and the bigger ones.
And so projects that take the Alice' Humpty Dumpty attitude:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." 

should be treated with suspicion in correspondence with the scorn.