Thoughts from a newbie

[John Roth]

"Steve" <stevesusenet at yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:6f8cb8c9.0212131330.594d9a08 at posting.google.com...
> I decided to learn Python after comments from people I respect highly
> recommended it.
>
> I've been browsing several tutorials, docs, and essays about python.
>
> I feel a bit naked without my ';' and my '{}', but I have to say that
> I really love that python uses indentation, as well as line returns
> for delimiting code v ersus punctuation markings.
>
> I've read, or tried to read enough sloppy code to appreciate this
> feature.
>
> Since indentation is used by most conscientous coders anyway, some use
> of punctuation markings becomes superfluous and even a kind of visual
> interferance/flak.
>
> In fact, I don't think python takes the idea of enforced
> neatness/readability far enough :).
>
>
> There are two coding habits that I see often that makes code harder to
> understand:
>
> 1. excessive nesting

The easiest way to avoid excessive nesting is the XP practice of
writing your test cases before writing your code. Excessive nesting
is one of several features that makes code hard to test.

> 2. lines longer than 80 chars

I don't see any practical way of doing this, short of going back
to punched cards (ducks and head swiftly for the exit...)

John Roth


> Steve