question about input() and/or raw_input()

[Grant Edwards]

On 2014-01-19, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Jan 2014 16:14:48 +0000 (UTC), Grant Edwards
><invalid at invalid.invalid> declaimed the following:
>
>>On 2014-01-18, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:
>>> On 1/18/2014 1:30 PM, Roy Smith wrote:
>>>> Pardon me for being cynical, but in the entire history of the universe,
>>>> has anybody ever used input()/raw_input() for anything other than a
>>>> homework problem?
>>>
>>> Homework problems (and 'toy' programs, such as hangman), whether in a 
>>> programming class or elsewhere, are one of the intended use cases of 
>>> Python. How else would you get interactive input without the complexity 
>>> of a gui?
>>
>>sys.stdin.readline()
>
> 	At which point a simple:
>
> nm = raw_input("Enter your name: ")
> print "Hello, ", nm
>
> turns into (to duplicate the behavior WRT line endings, and to minimize the
> new features the student is exposed to)
>
> import sys
>
> sys.stdout.write("Enter your name: ")
> nm = sys.stdin.readline()
> nm.strip()
> sys.stdout.write("Hello, ")
> sys.stdout.write(nm)
> sys.stdout.write("\n")
> sys.stdout.flush()

The question was how to get input without using a GUI.  I presented an
answer.  You then conflated "whether or not to use input" with
"whether or not to use print" and proceeded to construct and knock
down a very nice straw man.  Kudos.

import sys
print "Enter your name: ",
nm = sys.stdin.readline().strip()
print "Hello, ", nm

> Yes, a non-beginner would have been exposed to formatting operations
> and been able to condense the three .write() calls into one...

1) I don't get why you jumped on the whole print vs. string formatting
   thing.  We're not talking about print vs write.  We're talking
   about whether or not people use input and raw_input.  I've been
   writing Python programs for 15 years, and I've never used either
   input or raw_input.

2) I didn't claim that sys.stdin.readline() was as simple as using
   input.  I didn't claim it was preferable.  I merely presented it as
   a refutation to the argument that if you don't use input/raw_input
   then you have to use a GUI toolkit.

-- 
Grant