[Tutor] Anti-Patterns in Python Programming

[Deb Wyatt]

>> So much has been invented since my dos programming days and it is
>> overwhelming,
> 
> Actually very little has been *invented* since your DOS days.
> Almost everything we do today was already around back then.
>
I knew someone was going to say that.  Maybe it's the jargon 
that has been invented? 

Some questions I have at the moment:

1.  What is functional programming?
2.  What is procedural programming?
3.  What are data patterns?
4.  What are regular expression?

I worked for a private company for a while where I was the only 
programmer, then I worked for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, 
and then University of Washington, where I created and 
maintained database applications. I never heard of any of those 
things prior to the past few months since I started dipping my 
toes back in (more like total immersion, jeeze).  So maybe all 
this stuff has been around but I sure never heard of it.  

Almost every time I post a question on here, I get my hand 
slapped by someone, and the favorite thing for you all to say to 
newbies is "read the tutorial."  The tutorial is over our heads 
in a lot of cases because of the jargon, at least at first.  And 
so many times things are explained with C++ as an example.  

My favorite useless thing I have run across on the internet is 
the answer to what does hashable mean?  From stack overflow:

"An object is hashable if it has a hash value which never changes 
during its lifetime (it needs a __hash__() method), and can be 
compared to other objects (it needs an __eq__() or __cmp__() 
method). Hashable objects which compare equal must have the same 
hash value."

what is a hash value?  What's a _hash_() method (or any of those 
other methods)?  

You all take this understanding for granted, but it's not common 
knowledge for the rest of the world. I bet if I talked knitting 
and fiber jargon you all wouldn't understand much of what I was 
talking about lol.

Sorry this is so long, but if this list is to be useful for people 
the information needs to be understandable by the lay person
and maybe you all don't realize how much you take for granted.

Deb in WA, USA

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