[Tutor] string indexing -- side note, rather OT

[spir]

On 01/20/2014 01:19 AM, Keith Winston wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 3:50 PM, Alan Gauld <alan.gauld at btinternet.com> wrote:
>>> How would Python know whether you want find for gettext, mmap, str,
>>> xml.etree.ElementTree.Element or xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree?
>>
>>
>> Absolutely, but a newbie doesn't even guess that more than one find would
>> exist. Or even that there would need to be more than one.
>
> That's exactly it. I'm just getting to the point of being able to
> understand how much I don't know, and (I'm only a little embarrassed
> to admit) Alan's empty-string example was an "ah-ha" moment for me. I
> expect Help will be a great deal more useful now (of course, as I type
> that I realize I could have used the class name, help(str.find),
> instead of an impromptu instance. Another little ah-ha). And of
> course, the instant I understood all that, the point that Mark made
> became obvious. But I didn't see it before.

Side note, rather OT:

It is apparently very hard to share the perspective of novices once one gets 
used to features to the point they have become easy. It seems, in fact, often 
much harder for programmers than other people (I suspect this is because 
programmers, or "geeks", are often more "autistic" so to say). Obviously, a 
talented footballer (soccer) does not consider juggling with a ball (using only 
feet/head) easy for novices!

Some programmers, of which I consider they have a "pedagogic spirit", 
nevertheless are obviously skilled in that, whatever their expertise level. I 
think this is just "normal" human skill (sociability, in fact) but our way of 
life alters or distorts it.

Denis