2011/12/20 Yossi Itzkovich <[email protected]> > Hi Erez, > > A very good summary. Another claim that I heard more than once (related > to your 4th factor) is that , due to Python strict syntax, Python code is > easier to maintain. >
That's a two-sided coin though. Some people think of Python as readable due to its lack of symbols. However, some people think of Perl as readable due to its usage of symbols. "What is that? Oh, that's an array, I can see it by the symbol used." In most languages you have to scroll up, find documentation in comments, or look at the usage to understand what the variables are. In Perl you just look at the variable. Also, while Python programmers delight in the assumption that their language is ostensibly readable, it is not always legible. I've seen many Python programs which were written in a way that takes you quite some time to understand what the hell is going on. Legibility is not brought by strict rules of character assortment, but by understanding the context of the reader. Rules can always be worked around and I've seen experienced Python programmers whose code I would literally hate to read because it was so disorganized, so illegible, so impossible to understand. They just found a way around the rules, as people always do. So Python allows to put each parameter to a function in a single row, but you have to add an ugly "\" at the end of each line. PHP allows to do that without the slash, but you have to remove the last comment, which adds a special case and some find annoying. And Perl... well, Perl knows it can't win all of this, and it would be pointless to try, so it's flexible enough to let you choose which way you want to write it, and allow you to write "readable" code for you definition of "readable". As soon as a language works on denying you stuff (Python, Java), it's no longer your friend. :)
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