On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 2:26 PM, Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> wrote: > On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 01:43:53PM +0100, Søren Pilgård wrote: > > [...] >> I have also experienced beginners asking why you can do `x = "abc" >> "def"` but not `a = "abc"; b = "def"; x = a b` and then you have to >> either explain them the differences between strings and string >> literals or just tell them to always use `+`. > > If you tell them to "always use `+`", you are teaching them to be > cargo-cult coders who write code they don't understand for reasons they > don't know. > > Life is too short to learn *everything*, I know that, and I've certainly > copied lots of code I don't understand (and hoped I'd never need to > debug it!). If that makes me a cargo-cult coder too, so be it. > > But never over something as simple as the difference between names a and > b, and string literals "abc", "def". > >
Yes of course the skilled programmer needs to understand the difference. But I am talking about absolute beginners where python in many regards is an excelent first language. And in time they will probably get an understanding of why there is a difference, but when you still have trouble telling the difference between 5 and "5" then telling them the difference between strings and string litterals will only confuse them more. Trying to teach a person everything at once does not work well, limiting the curriculum and defering some parts for later study is hardly cargo-cult coding. At least not more than all the other things that just work the way they do because thats how it works - from the beginners point of view. _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list Python-ideas@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
