[Tutor] broken script - curiouser and curiouser

[Lisi]

Thanks very much Martin.  I did "solve" the problem after you kindly emailed - 
but the solution has puzzled me more that the original problem.

On Tuesday 05 July 2011 23:23:41 Martin wrote:
>  : lisi at Tux:~/Python/LearnPythonTheHardWay$ python ex26.py
>  :   File "ex26.py", line 10
>  :     def print_first_word(words)
>  :                               ^
>  : SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>  : lisi at Tux:~/Python/LearnPythonTheHardWay$
>
> Look at the error.  Look at the error carefully.
>
> Look at the definitions of your other functions....
>
> Compare.  What is different?

I could see nothing that was different.

>           do you see the colon?

Yes - it was one of the first things I looked for when the error came up (that 
and check that the brackets were right).  It was there in what seemed to me 
to be the right position.
>              
> def silly_function(args):
>
> Curiously, the sample that you pasted above has the required colon
> at the end of the line which starts the function definition.
>
>  : def print_first_word(words):
>  :     """Prints the first word after popping it off."""
>  :     word=words.pop(0)
>  :     print word
>
> I have heard people express frustration many times about how a
> program(ming language) or "the computer" did not understand
> something because the thing was 'missing a damned semicolon'.

 I know that the smallest difference matters when dealing with a computer but 
could - and can - find none.

> Try again, keep with it, and recognize that these beasties are
> awfully particular in what they accept.  And, for good reason.

I have no difficulty with the fact that computers are literal minded.  They 
are after all, machines.  But "try again" was obviously great advice, and you 
had given me the push I needed to try again when I had given up.  

In the end, having tried absolutely everything else I could think of, and 
given that the error arose at the closing bracket at the end of line 10, I 
tried the only thing I could remotely think of that I hadn't tried and put a 
space in between the second bracket and the colon - and the wretched thing 
ran.  So I altered line six in the same way - and that still ran.  So line 
six will run either with or without the space.  I then typed the next 2 
sections in, and they ran, like line 6, either with or without the space.

So line 10 needs a space and the other sections are happy either with or 
without.  And they all have """ at the beginning of the next line.

You could obviously see something wrong that I had continued, and continue, to 
miss, and I have still not found it.  Hitting on the "right" solution almost 
by serendipity doesn't really count as seeing something wrong!!

> Best of luck, Lisi,

Thanks again very much Martin.  You really encouraged me.  

I am obviously not going to get any further now, I am so bogged down in the 
whole thing.  So I think that I may need to pass on and come back to it 
later.

Lisi