syntax difference

[Bart]

On 23/06/2018 20:52, boB Stepp wrote:
> I've finally found time to examine this rather long, rambling thread.

>> There is a place for various levels of programming language. I'm saying that Python which is always touted as a 'simple' language suitable for beginners, is missing a surprising number of basics.

> I still feel like a rank beginner, but on the Tutor list some
> disagree.

The first programming exercise I ever did involved asking for three 
numbers, then determining whether those numbers could form the sides of 
a triangle.

Then [40 years ago], the easy part was reading the three numbers. Now 
that would be the more challenging part.

This is one of the basics that is missing. Getting around it is not 
hard, but it's some messing about and it's a distraction. But 40 years 
ago it was just 'readln a,b,c'; it was just taken for granted.

(It make seem quaint in these days of GUIs, gestures, and voice 
recognition to be reading a line at a time, but you will need it still 
for text file i/o.)

> Anyway, so far Python has not lacked for anything I have needed so
> far.

I'd be surprised if Python lacked anything; there can't be anything that 
someone has thought of that is either built-in or bolted on, if not 
always that elegantly or that efficiently.

However, imagine having to use a language which didn't have assignments 
as you are used to, and that you would expect to exist. Then you might 
well remark that it's missing something that you regard as a basic, 
while the proponents of that language point out that it doesn't stop you 
writing programs; it just needs a different approach.

(I believe that you can write any program using just IF-GOTO statements 
and ASSIGNMENT statements, and no other flow control (given suitable 
data-types and means of I/O). But if you wanted to try out an 
interesting experiment along those lines (eg. transcribe any flowchart 
to code), a large number of languages, including Python, make it hard 
because 'goto' is missing.)

> All I can say is I have yet to find much at all in Python cumbersome
> or bewildering.

No? How many ways are there in Python, including third party add-ons, of 
working with record-like objects?

> As an aside to Bart, if you strongly feel that Python is missing a
> really useful feature, then why don't you do the usual thing, start a
> very specific thread about just that feature (Not just a collection of
> things you like in one of your languages.), and if you manage to
> persuade the community of its usefulness, then write up a PEP about
> it?  Just saying ... ~(:>))

I'm not a user. My interest is in design and implementation, especially 
of interpreters, and especially of efficient ones. A lot of things that 
Python could do with are made very difficult by the existing design of 
that language. Being so dynamic has a lot to answer for.

So I don't envy the job of the people who really have to move the 
language forward. That doesn't mean I can't argue with people who say 
that Python doesn't really need (say) Switch. (I guess the Blub paradox 
works both ways...)

-- 
bart