Re: Ohnoes significant whitespace (was: Considering migrating to Python from Visual Basic 6 for engineering applications)
On 2016-02-19, Ben Finney <ben+pyt...@benfinney.id.au> wrote: > So I am sympathetic to Python newcomers recoiling in horror from > significant whitespace, *before* they try it. And because of that, we > are burdened with forever needing to deal with that reaction and > soothing it. The first time I wrote Python (it was the only language I could find that was free and for which I found understandable examples on how to suck e-mail messages out of Outlook using DCOM -- which was the problem to be solved), I had an initial aversion to the "significant whitespace" concept. That immediately vanished once I started working on my first Python code. That was Python 1.5.2 back in 1999. Shortly after that, I went to the trouble to add raw socket support to the Python standard library "socket" module so that I could use Python for some other tasks. :) > Those people who claim to have tried Python and *still* complain > about “significant whitespace”, I have no sympathy for. I, on the other hand, do feel sorry for them because their brains are evidently broken in some basic manner that can't help but cause them suffering. > Python clearly does it right, and it's a huge boon to readability > and reducing simple errors. Indeed. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! Used staples are good at with SOY SAUCE! gmail.com -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Ohnoes significant whitespace
Ben Finney <ben+pyt...@benfinney.id.au>: > So I am sympathetic to Python newcomers recoiling in horror from > significant whitespace, *before* they try it. And because of that, we > are burdened with forever needing to deal with that reaction and > soothing it. I remember being *very* doubtful how the whitespace would work in practice. I was won over by a colleague who had sloppy indentation habbits in C++ but produced tidy, readable code in Python. > Those people who claim to have tried Python and *still* complain about > “significant whitespace”, I am bitten by it occasionally. The editor doesn't know from the context how a line or block should be (re)indented. In Emacs, TAB, BS and C-M-\, which keep source code properly indented in other programming languages, have been known to lead to accidental bugs in Python code. (The proper way in Emacs is to use C-> and C-< to manipulate blocks of Python code.) > I have no sympathy for. Python clearly does it right, and it's a huge > boon to readability and reducing simple errors. I don't mind Python's syntax. It's the implicit semicolons of JavaScript and Go that I dislike. Marko -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Ohnoes significant whitespace (was: Considering migrating to Python from Visual Basic 6 for engineering applications)
Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> writes: > I'm talking about how people, those bags of flesh and thoughts, are > bugged out by the notion that *whitespace* should matter (other than > the mere presence/absence of it). It's the price you pay for being > different - people will have trouble comprehending you. To be fair, there is good reason for the programming (and broader IT) community to have a heuristic of “significant whitespace is probably bad”. The few languages that did this badly (Makefile syntax, some Unix shell syntax) leave a legacy of countless headaches and you can't fix the language retroactively without breaking backward compatibility. So I am sympathetic to Python newcomers recoiling in horror from significant whitespace, *before* they try it. And because of that, we are burdened with forever needing to deal with that reaction and soothing it. Those people who claim to have tried Python and *still* complain about “significant whitespace”, I have no sympathy for. Python clearly does it right, and it's a huge boon to readability and reducing simple errors. -- \ “He was the mildest-mannered man / That ever scuttled ship or | `\ cut a throat.” —“Lord” George Gordon Noel Byron, _Don Juan_ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
r0g wrote: David Robinow wrote: On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 10:42 PM, Roy Smith r...@panix.com wrote: In article mailman.386.1262576043.28905.python-l...@python.org, David Robinow drobi...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 8:09 PM, Tim Roberts t...@probo.com wrote: More than not required, it was not relevant. This led to one of the most infamous programming blunders in the early days of the space program, when one programmer accidentially typed a period instead of a comma resulting in the loss of a satellite: Interesting story. Did you make it up? It's a fairly well known story. http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/5.64.html#subj4.2 Sure. But the question is, Who made it up? http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fortran Computer folklore has incorrectly attributed the loss of the Mariner 1 space probe to a syntax error in a Fortran program. For example, Recall the first American space probe to Venus, reportedly lost because Fortran cannot recognize a missing comma in a DO statement…[ Wow you're totally right! It was a missing UNDERSCORE not a DOT being typed instead of a COMMA! We've been lied to ALL ALONG! What kind of sickos would do this? Let's find this Tim character, flay him alive and then go crown you the KING OF EVERYTHING for rescuing us from that deadly nugget of misinformation! Honestly I might have believed those dot/comma LIES if it wasn't for your noble selfless efforts to uncover the SHOCKING TRUTH. Imagine what might have happened! The character in question being an UNDERSCORE COMPLETELY CHANGES the meaning and point of the story. As for it being LEFT OUT rather than TRANSPOSED, well, anyone can see how that TURNS THE WHOLE STORY UPSIDE DOWN. Of course there are the naysayers who might claim absolute accuracy is no big deal in stories that are essentially parables but they do not understand the HARM that can come from not remembering really tiny, almost inconsequential details. For what it's worth I DO NOT consider you a tiresome pedant and I think your taunting, patronising style is completely appropriate and proportional to Tim's sickening crimes against fact. Roger. Personally I think the overall tone of this group would have been marginally improved if you had summoned the self-restraint to simply not make this posting. Fortunately it's still an unmoderated group, so you can continue to be as hostile and snarky as you like. regards Steve -- Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119 PyCon is coming! Atlanta, Feb 2010 http://us.pycon.org/ Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/ UPCOMING EVENTS:http://holdenweb.eventbrite.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Off Topic ( was Re: Significant whitespace)
Steve Holden wrote: r0g wrote: David Robinow wrote: On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 10:42 PM, Roy Smith r...@panix.com wrote: In article mailman.386.1262576043.28905.python-l...@python.org, David Robinow drobi...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 8:09 PM, Tim Roberts t...@probo.com wrote: More than not required, it was not relevant. This led to one of the most infamous programming blunders in the early days of the space program, when one programmer accidentially typed a period instead of a comma resulting in the loss of a satellite: Interesting story. Did you make it up? It's a fairly well known story. http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/5.64.html#subj4.2 Sure. But the question is, Who made it up? http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fortran snip completely appropriate and proportional to Tim's sickening crimes against fact. Roger. Personally I think the overall tone of this group would have been marginally improved if you had summoned the self-restraint to simply not make this posting. Fortunately it's still an unmoderated group, so you can continue to be as hostile and snarky as you like. regards Steve Well I could say the same thing Steve: you could also not have posted and thereby spared the group even more off topic noise, I'd have quite happily left it there. Of course our emotional urges trump rationality almost every time so I understand your urge to address what has upset you, much as I hope you understand my subsequent urge to respond. I appreciate this is a professional programming forum and that my post was crass in the extreme but I get really fed up with the needless pedantry of computer geeks sometimes; not to mention the insufferably sanctimonious tone they adopted whilst engaging in it. It ranges from semi-conscious passive aggression to out and out dick swinging and I think the overall tone of this group would be marginally improved by doing away with it. There are perfectly good way's of putting things that don't require taunting and smugness. Contrast the clearly snarky personal challenge... Interesting story. Did you make it up? ...with the far more convivial correction... Interestingly it was a missing underscore character ;) see http://example.com/rahrarhrah;... Both could satisfy the inner pedant's demands for attention, why choose the first? Personally I think the first respondent should have summoned the self restraint to just let it drop too, but they didn't and I feel they did the OP an injustice by that. My apologies for the noise everybody, I shall say no more on the subject. Cheers, Roger. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On Jan 2, 10:29 am, Roy Smith r...@panix.com wrote: To address your question more directly, here's a couple of ways Fortran treated whitespace which would surprise the current crop of Java/PHP/Python/Ruby programmers: 1) Line numbers (i.e. the things you could GOTO to) were in column 2-7 (column 1 was reserved for a comment indicator). This is not quite significant whitespace, it's more like significant indentation. That would also surprise former FORTRAN programmers (who rarely referred to the language as Fortran). A comment was signified by a C in col 1. Otherwise cols 1-5 were used for statement labels (the things you could GOTO), col 6 for a statement continuation indicator, cols 7-72 for statement text, and cols 73-80 for card sequence numbers. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On Jan 1, 4:02�pm, Dan Stromberg drsali...@gmail.com wrote: I put together a page about significant whitespace (and the lack thereof). The real problem is your use of proportional spaced fonts. You're invited to check it out: http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~dstromberg/significant-whitespace.html -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
Roy Smith r...@panix.com wrote: 2) Whitespace was not required in many places. For example, the following two statements (this will only make sense in a fixed-width font) are identical: DO 10 I = 1, 10 DO10I=1,10 More than not required, it was not relevant. This led to one of the most infamous programming blunders in the early days of the space program, when one programmer accidentially typed a period instead of a comma resulting in the loss of a satellite: DO 10 I = 1. 10 What this actually does is store the floating point value 1.1 in a new variable called DO10I. -- Tim Roberts, t...@probo.com Providenza Boekelheide, Inc. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
In article eqf2k5pna25hb0v7a30p9dpcmsvt46s...@4ax.com, Tim Roberts t...@probo.com wrote: Roy Smith r...@panix.com wrote: 2) Whitespace was not required in many places. For example, the following two statements (this will only make sense in a fixed-width font) are identical: DO 10 I = 1, 10 DO10I=1,10 More than not required, it was not relevant. This led to one of the most infamous programming blunders in the early days of the space program, when one programmer accidentially typed a period instead of a comma resulting in the loss of a satellite: DO 10 I = 1. 10 What this actually does is store the floating point value 1.1 in a new variable called DO10I. 1.1 or 1.01? There were some places where a blank was equivalent to a zero in a number. I don't remember if this was one of them. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 8:09 PM, Tim Roberts t...@probo.com wrote: More than not required, it was not relevant. This led to one of the most infamous programming blunders in the early days of the space program, when one programmer accidentially typed a period instead of a comma resulting in the loss of a satellite: Interesting story. Did you make it up? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
In article mailman.386.1262576043.28905.python-l...@python.org, David Robinow drobi...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 8:09 PM, Tim Roberts t...@probo.com wrote: More than not required, it was not relevant. This led to one of the most infamous programming blunders in the early days of the space program, when one programmer accidentially typed a period instead of a comma resulting in the loss of a satellite: Interesting story. Did you make it up? It's a fairly well known story. http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/5.64.html#subj4.2 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 10:42 PM, Roy Smith r...@panix.com wrote: In article mailman.386.1262576043.28905.python-l...@python.org, David Robinow drobi...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 8:09 PM, Tim Roberts t...@probo.com wrote: More than not required, it was not relevant. This led to one of the most infamous programming blunders in the early days of the space program, when one programmer accidentially typed a period instead of a comma resulting in the loss of a satellite: Interesting story. Did you make it up? It's a fairly well known story. http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/5.64.html#subj4.2 Sure. But the question is, Who made it up? http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fortran Computer folklore has incorrectly attributed the loss of the Mariner 1 space probe to a syntax error in a Fortran program. For example, Recall the first American space probe to Venus, reportedly lost because Fortran cannot recognize a missing comma in a DO statement…[ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
David Robinow wrote: On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 10:42 PM, Roy Smith r...@panix.com wrote: In article mailman.386.1262576043.28905.python-l...@python.org, David Robinow drobi...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 8:09 PM, Tim Roberts t...@probo.com wrote: More than not required, it was not relevant. This led to one of the most infamous programming blunders in the early days of the space program, when one programmer accidentially typed a period instead of a comma resulting in the loss of a satellite: Interesting story. Did you make it up? It's a fairly well known story. http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/5.64.html#subj4.2 Sure. But the question is, Who made it up? http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fortran Computer folklore has incorrectly attributed the loss of the Mariner 1 space probe to a syntax error in a Fortran program. For example, Recall the first American space probe to Venus, reportedly lost because Fortran cannot recognize a missing comma in a DO statement…[ Wow you're totally right! It was a missing UNDERSCORE not a DOT being typed instead of a COMMA! We've been lied to ALL ALONG! What kind of sickos would do this? Let's find this Tim character, flay him alive and then go crown you the KING OF EVERYTHING for rescuing us from that deadly nugget of misinformation! Honestly I might have believed those dot/comma LIES if it wasn't for your noble selfless efforts to uncover the SHOCKING TRUTH. Imagine what might have happened! The character in question being an UNDERSCORE COMPLETELY CHANGES the meaning and point of the story. As for it being LEFT OUT rather than TRANSPOSED, well, anyone can see how that TURNS THE WHOLE STORY UPSIDE DOWN. Of course there are the naysayers who might claim absolute accuracy is no big deal in stories that are essentially parables but they do not understand the HARM that can come from not remembering really tiny, almost inconsequential details. For what it's worth I DO NOT consider you a tiresome pedant and I think your taunting, patronising style is completely appropriate and proportional to Tim's sickening crimes against fact. Roger. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:42:44 -0500, David Robinow wrote: On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 10:42 PM, Roy Smith r...@panix.com wrote: In article mailman.386.1262576043.28905.python-l...@python.org, David Robinow drobi...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 8:09 PM, Tim Roberts t...@probo.com wrote: More than not required, it was not relevant. This led to one of the most infamous programming blunders in the early days of the space program, when one programmer accidentially typed a period instead of a comma resulting in the loss of a satellite: Interesting story. Did you make it up? It's a fairly well known story. http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/5.64.html#subj4.2 Sure. But the question is, Who made it up? http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fortran Computer folklore has incorrectly attributed the loss of the Mariner 1 space probe to a syntax error in a Fortran program. For example, Recall the first American space probe to Venus, reportedly lost because Fortran cannot recognize a missing comma in a DO statement…[ What makes you believe it is incorrect? -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
Donn donn.in...@gmail.com wrote: On Saturday 02 January 2010 00:02:36 Dan Stromberg wrote: I put together a page about significant whitespace (and the lack thereof). The only thing about Python's style that worries me is that it can't be compressed like javascript can*, and perhaps that will prevent it becoming a browser-side language one day. How I'd love to code PyQuery instead of JQuery! You can do simple white-space removal as easily in Python as in Javascript, you just need to maintain a minimal indentation and as you don't need Javascript's curly braces there probably isn't must difference especially once the code has been gzipped for transfer to the browser. You can already run Python client side in certain situations (e.g. Silverlight), but if you want to write Python for the browser portably today have a look at Pyjamas http://code.google.com/p/pyjamas/ . Google's Chrome also supports native code (currently just for x86 machines though they have said they intend to support ARM), so there should be some potential there to compile a Python interpreter that runs client-side in Google's sandbox: see http://plash.beasts.org/wiki/NativeClient for an early port. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On Sat, 02 Jan 2010 10:42:39 +, Duncan Booth wrote: Donn donn.in...@gmail.com wrote: On Saturday 02 January 2010 00:02:36 Dan Stromberg wrote: I put together a page about significant whitespace (and the lack thereof). The only thing about Python's style that worries me is that it can't be compressed like javascript can*, and perhaps that will prevent it becoming a browser-side language one day. How I'd love to code PyQuery instead of JQuery! You can do simple white-space removal as easily in Python as in Javascript, you just need to maintain a minimal indentation and as you don't need Javascript's curly braces there probably isn't must difference especially once the code has been gzipped for transfer to the browser. I don't understand why you would bother removing whitespace, particularly if you're going to gzip the file anyway. I've just picked one of my modules at random: about 47K in size, of which about 15K is whitespace. Compressed to .bz, it is 12K, and if I strip the whitespace from it first and then compress it, it is 11K. So, even though whitespace (spaces and newlines) make up about 30% of the original source, once compressed they represent only about 8%. Given the extra complexity of stripping whitespace, I don't know that it's worthwhile. It's not like you're going to reduce the download time from three hours to one; it's more like 2 seconds to 1.5. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On 1/1/2010 5:05 PM Steven D'Aprano said... In Python terms, imagine if we could write foriinrange(10): instead of the usual for i in range(10): Since the colon makes it unambiguous that it is some sort of block construct, and it starts with for, it must be a for loop. Pretty horrible, yes? Yes -- early on I got stung by something similar. My first programming job (1977?) was working in a basic dialect called Buisness Basic Level II (BBII). To delete a record in the file you used a remove statement. White space on the line was optional, allowing you to write lines like '100 remove(1,key=k$)' and '100 fori=1to10'. REM was how a remark statement began, which allowed statements like 100 REM comment. I was sent on-site to a customer running the prior version (BBI). I didn't realize the REMOVE command changed between versions from REKEY, and it was only after a more experienced programmer co-wroker pointed out that my REMOVE statement was being interpreted as a REM that I finally found the bug I'd created. Manuals and documentation, while often lacking, are as often underrated. Emile -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On Jan 2, 4:19 pm, Emile van Sebille em...@fenx.com wrote: On 1/1/2010 5:05 PM Steven D'Aprano said... In Python terms, imagine if we could write foriinrange(10): instead of the usual for i in range(10): Since the colon makes it unambiguous that it is some sort of block construct, and it starts with for, it must be a for loop. Pretty horrible, yes? Yes -- early on I got stung by something similar. My first programming job (1977?) was working in a basic dialect called Buisness Basic Level II (BBII). To delete a record in the file you used a remove statement. White space on the line was optional, allowing you to write lines like '100 remove(1,key=k$)' and '100 fori=1to10'. REM was how a remark statement began, which allowed statements like 100 REM comment. I was sent on-site to a customer running the prior version (BBI). I didn't realize the REMOVE command changed between versions from REKEY, and it was only after a more experienced programmer co-wroker pointed out that my REMOVE statement was being interpreted as a REM that I finally found the bug I'd created. Better than the other way 'round, eh? Manuals and documentation, while often lacking, are as often underrated. Emile -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Significant whitespace
I put together a page about significant whitespace (and the lack thereof). You're invited to check it out: http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~dstromberg/significant-whitespace.html -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 2:02 PM, Dan Stromberg drsali...@gmail.com wrote: I put together a page about significant whitespace (and the lack thereof). You're invited to check it out: http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~dstromberg/significant-whitespace.html For those of us who weren't around during the heyday of FORTRAN, can anyone describe this apparently much-reviled significant whitespace feature that continues to make some programmers unjustly fearful about Python's use of indentation? Thanks in advance. Cheers, Chris -- http://blog.rebertia.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
In article mailman.319.1262384371.28905.python-l...@python.org, Chris Rebert c...@rebertia.com wrote: On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 2:02 PM, Dan Stromberg drsali...@gmail.com wrote: I put together a page about significant whitespace (and the lack thereof). You're invited to check it out: http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~dstromberg/significant-whitespace.html For those of us who weren't around during the heyday of FORTRAN, can anyone describe this apparently much-reviled significant whitespace feature that continues to make some programmers unjustly fearful about Python's use of indentation? I know it's bad form to cite yourself, but I think I said it pretty well (oh my) 12 years ago: http://www.python.org/doc/humor/#bad-habits To address your question more directly, here's a couple of ways Fortran treated whitespace which would surprise the current crop of Java/PHP/Python/Ruby programmers: 1) Line numbers (i.e. the things you could GOTO to) were in column 2-7 (column 1 was reserved for a comment indicator). This is not quite significant whitespace, it's more like significant indentation. 2) Whitespace was not required in many places. For example, the following two statements (this will only make sense in a fixed-width font) are identical: DO 10 I = 1, 10 DO10I=1,10 People make fun of Fortran these days, but it was a staggeringly important advance in software development compared to what came before (i.e. assembler). The move from assembler to Fortran was a far more significant advance than the move from, say, Perl to Python. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:19:28 -0800, Chris Rebert wrote: For those of us who weren't around during the heyday of FORTRAN, can anyone describe this apparently much-reviled significant whitespace feature that continues to make some programmers unjustly fearful about Python's use of indentation? I'm not a Fortran expert, but I understand that whitespace was optional within lines unless needed to make something unambiguous. In Python terms, imagine if we could write foriinrange(10): instead of the usual for i in range(10): Since the colon makes it unambiguous that it is some sort of block construct, and it starts with for, it must be a for loop. Pretty horrible, yes? -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
Dan Stromberg wrote: I put together a page about significant whitespace (and the lack thereof). You're invited to check it out: http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~dstromberg/significant-whitespace.html You might also want to mention that programmers tend to indent anyway for clarity. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
In article 3db95947-1e35-4bd1-bd4c-37df646f9...@v25g2000yqk.googlegroups.com, John Machin sjmac...@lexicon.net wrote: On Jan 2, 10:29 am, Roy Smith r...@panix.com wrote: To address your question more directly, here's a couple of ways Fortran treated whitespace which would surprise the current crop of Java/PHP/Python/Ruby programmers: 1) Line numbers (i.e. the things you could GOTO to) were in column 2-7 (column 1 was reserved for a comment indicator). This is not quite significant whitespace, it's more like significant indentation. That would also surprise former FORTRAN programmers (who rarely referred to the language as Fortran). A comment was signified by a C in col 1. Otherwise cols 1-5 were used for statement labels (the things you could GOTO), col 6 for a statement continuation indicator, cols 7-72 for statement text, and cols 73-80 for card sequence numbers. My apologies, you are correct. The long disused neural pathways have started to degrade. Trust me, I really did write FORTRAN. On punch cards even. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On Saturday 02 January 2010 00:02:36 Dan Stromberg wrote: I put together a page about significant whitespace (and the lack thereof). The only thing about Python's style that worries me is that it can't be compressed like javascript can*, and perhaps that will prevent it becoming a browser-side language one day. How I'd love to code PyQuery instead of JQuery! * Or am I wrong? \d -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Significant whitespace
On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 9:56 PM, Donn donn.in...@gmail.com wrote: On Saturday 02 January 2010 00:02:36 Dan Stromberg wrote: I put together a page about significant whitespace (and the lack thereof). The only thing about Python's style that worries me is that it can't be compressed like javascript can*, and perhaps that will prevent it becoming a browser-side language one day. How I'd love to code PyQuery instead of JQuery! * Or am I wrong? Not to my knowledge, but CPython's bytecode format could be used to similar effect. However, the larger and much more daunting obstacle to client-side Python would be that it's not sandboxed or secured like JavaScript is, although there are some people working on it. Cheers, Chris -- http://blog.rebertia.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Dennis Lee Bieber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | On 8 Aug 2006 04:59:34 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] declaimed the | following in comp.lang.python: | | | Some of it may be a reaction from old-timers who remember FORTRAN, | where (if memory serves), code had to start in column 16 and code | continutations had to be an asterik in column 72 (it's been many years | since I've done any work in FORTRAN, but you get the idea) | | Comment C in column 1 | (often extended to accept OS JCL markers too) | Label numeric in 1-5 | Continuation anything in column 6 | (DEC, if using tab indents would take tab) | Statement column 7-72 | Sequence/ID column 73-80 | | I forget what COBOL used, but it had a few fields of its own. The COBOL I used (NCR Century, Burroughs, some little IBM) was not fussy - the only thing was that like in assembler, you had to start a lable (that is a symbolic name for an address) in the first column... And you *had* to end what Python calls a suite with a fullstop - many hours spent looking for weird bugs.. The breaking of the link between a lable or name and a memory address of something is what I think most newcomers to Python find horribly confusing... - Hendrik -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes No. In that case Python makes it more readily apparent that your code is too complex. If only life and software engineering was that simple. Not every problem can be reduced to one screenful of code, not in the real world anyway. Stephen -- Stephen Kellett Object Media Limitedhttp://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/software.html Computer Consultancy, Software Development Windows C++, Java, Assembler, Performance Analysis, Troubleshooting -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Gerhard Fiedler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes I mean the code should be written so that as few as possible comments are necessary to understand it. I don't mean that additional comments are a bad thing. Agreed. Concise code is always good. Just found this on c.l.ruby. Seems kind of relevant. QUOTE My apologies if someone has posted this already -- I just received it: http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/51982 The Semicolon Wars Every programmer knows there is one true programming language. A new one every week /QUOTE -- Stephen Kellett Object Media Limitedhttp://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/software.html Computer Consultancy, Software Development Windows C++, Java, Assembler, Performance Analysis, Troubleshooting -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 07:33:41 -0700 Rob Wolfe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: # Slawomir Nowaczyk wrote: # # Really, typing brace after function/if/etc should add newlines and # indent code as required -- automatically. Actually, for me, it is even # *less* typing in C and similar languages... I probably should teach my # Emacs to automatically add newline after colon in Python, just as it # does after a brace in C... As soon as I figure out how to deal with # dictionary literals. Hmmm. # # Are you sure? My Emacs already know how to do it with the help # of python-mode and magic function py-newline-and-indent. # # emacs-version 21.3.1 # py-version $Revision: 4.63 $ OK, my python-mode.el was older, so I upgraded to 4.75, but it still doesn't work. Did you mean that after you write if x==1: the newline is inserted automatically when you type :? That's a functionality I would like to see, but it doesn't seem to work this way. Anyway, I am using python.el most of the time and it doesn't have that functionality yet. -- Best wishes, Slawomir Nowaczyk ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) Live in the past and future only. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Carl
Banks [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes
Stephen Kellett wrote:
I don't really understand how a closing brace helps here. Care to
explain why it helps you?
(Deeply nested long functions are evil anyways. If you have such a
I didn't write deeply nested. I wrote multiple levels of indentation.
They are not the same thing (they can be, but they don't have to be). A
lot of code gets to 3 or 4 levels of indentation quite easily. I
wouldn't call that deeply nested, not by a long shot.
To answer your first question: In C++/Ruby/Pascal you'd have something
like this
function()
{
loop1()
{
blah
blah
loop2()
{
blah
loop3()
{
blah
}
blah
}
}
otherloop()
{
blah
}
}
and in Python that gets to
function()
loop1()
blah
blah
loop2()
blah
loop3()
blah
blah3
otherloop()
blah
I really dislike that the end of loop2 is implicit rather than
explicit. If its implicit you have to look for it. And if blah3 didn't
exist then both loop2 and loop3 would be ending implicitly. This problem
gets worse with longer functions and more indentation. I'm sure some
people are thinking the above is elegant. To me, its clumsy, and here is
why...
Now, the above Python version looks nice, I grant you, but that is
because it is short. I'm talking about long functions which take up some
space. When you come to add loop4, which for arguments sake is after
loop2 but before otherloop() and at the same indentation as loop2, thats
trivial in C/Ruby/etc but in Python I've got to scroll up the screen
find loop2, remembers its indentation go back down and carefully insert
it hoping I've got it right. I don't have do that with C/Ruby etc
because loop2() ends with a brace/end statement so I know its
indentation/end point without having to go and find the start of it
(which is off the screen).
Yes the above example is contrived - so that I could demonstrate what I
wanted to demonstrate. But I've run into these problems with Python code
I've written and when reading code written by others. Its a real
problem, not just one I've cooked up for an argument.
As part of my day job I get to look at a lot of code written by other
people, mainly people I've never met and often people I've never even
traded email with. Strangely, if people have traded email with me, code
that arrives is usually well formatted :-) The amount of code written in
horrible styles is amazing, but if you can't spot the start/end of
loops/conditionals easily and quickly without having to actually read
the code then scanning for the actual code of interest becomes a lot
harder. C/C++ have quite a number of horrible styles (K/R being one)
which can be fixed with a code formatter, but that implicit loop ending
thing with Python I demo above - thats a language feature and nothing I
can do will make that go away.
I'm always thinking maintenance and readability, some time after the
fact. I know that I'll have a reason to come back some time later. Maybe
for a bug fix, a feature improvement or just to lift some code. That is
why stuff like this is important to me. It needs to be as fast,
efficient and error free as possible. And the above doesn't do if for
me.
Now I'm sure some of you will think I'm mad or whatever, but things like
this are important (to me, at least). I don't want to waste my time with
issues like the above. If I'm wasting my time on stuff like this it
can't be that readable can it? If you think the above isn't an issue
we'll just have to agree to disagree.
There some are people on the c.l.ruby newsgroup that love Ruby because
they don't have to type semicolons anymore. Not that its going to change
the world, but its important for them. I think that is one of the least
important things you can think of about Ruby, but there you go.
Stephen
--
Stephen Kellett
Object Media Limitedhttp://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/software.html
Computer Consultancy, Software Development
Windows C++, Java, Assembler, Performance Analysis, Troubleshooting
--
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Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Slawomir Nowaczyk wrote: On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 07:33:41 -0700 Rob Wolfe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: # Slawomir Nowaczyk wrote: # # Really, typing brace after function/if/etc should add newlines and # indent code as required -- automatically. Actually, for me, it is even # *less* typing in C and similar languages... I probably should teach my # Emacs to automatically add newline after colon in Python, just as it # does after a brace in C... As soon as I figure out how to deal with # dictionary literals. Hmmm. # # Are you sure? My Emacs already know how to do it with the help # of python-mode and magic function py-newline-and-indent. # # emacs-version 21.3.1 # py-version $Revision: 4.63 $ OK, my python-mode.el was older, so I upgraded to 4.75, but it still doesn't work. Did you mean that after you write if x==1: the newline is inserted automatically when you type :? That's a Exactly. functionality I would like to see, but it doesn't seem to work this way. Here is fragment of my python-mode.el: The \\[indent-for-tab-command] and \\[py-newline-and-indent] keys try to suggest plausible indentation, based on the indentation of preceding statements. E.g., assuming py-indent-offset is 4, after you enter \tif a 0: \\[py-newline-and-indent] the cursor will be moved to the position of the `_' (_ is not a character in the file, it's just used here to indicate the location of the cursor): \tif a 0: \t_ If you then enter `c = d' \\[py-newline-and-indent], the cursor will move to \tif a 0: \tc = d \t_ Python-mode cannot know whether that's what you intended, or whether \tif a 0: \tc = d \t_ was your intent. In general, Python-mode either reproduces the indentation of the (closest code or indenting-comment) preceding statement, or adds an extra py-indent-offset blanks if the preceding statement has `:' as its last significant (non-whitespace and non- comment) character. If the suggested indentation is too much, use \\[py-electric-backspace] to reduce it. Regards, Rob -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Carl Banks wrote: Although Python doesn't do this, it is possible to mandate a specific indent (4 spaces, say), or at least a reasonable consistent indent snip I like running reindent.py (found in your Python source directory under Tools/Scripts) which cleans up indentations, trailing whitespace, and other things. We run our entire source directory through reindent before we check it into our library. A very nice routine courtesy of Tim Peters, I believe. --greg -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Stephen Kellett wrote: function() loop1() blah blah loop2() blah loop3() blah blah3 otherloop() blah Yes the above example is contrived - so that I could demonstrate what I wanted to demonstrate. But I've run into these problems with Python code I've written and when reading code written by others. Its a real problem, not just one I've cooked up for an argument. [much snippage] I actually agree with you here; when indentation goes on longer than a screen it can become difficult know what that indentation is associated with. Braces may mitigate it somewhat, but not completely. Some points to consider: * Python is inherently shorter than C/C++, so you're less likely to go over one screen. * Long functions should usually be refactored anyway and would gain readability in any language. The threshold here is smaller in python because your code will do more significant things, vs C where your screen gets covered with minutiae that you learn to mentally ignore. Also, I wonder if a more intelligent editor would help here, one that would visually indicate blocks as such: function() | loop1() | | blah | | blah | | | | loop2() | | | blah | | | | | | loop3() | | | | blah | | | | | | blah3 | | otherloop() | | blah Surely this would eliminate the problem? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Carl Banks wrote: Although Python doesn't do this, it is possible to mandate a specific indent (4 spaces, say), or at least a reasonable consistent indent snip I like running reindent.py (found in your Python source directory under Tools/Scripts) which cleans up indentations, trailing whitespace, and other things. We run our entire source directory through reindent before we check it into our library. A very nice routine courtesy of Tim Peters, I believe. The very fact the code reindenters exist should tell you that fixed indent is superior. :) Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Stephen Kellett wrote: I really dislike that the end of loop2 is implicit rather than explicit. So you can't see at a glance how many blocks were closed. That's fair. Add a little chalk mark to the against column. C/C++ have quite a number of horrible styles (K/R being one) Oddly, I never used to use K R until I was a longtime Python programmer. Then I wanted to get those redundant braces as far out of the way as reasonable; hence K R. Maybe someday I'll take up a LISP-like style and put the closing brace on the last line of the block. (No, I won't.) Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:01:51 -0700 Rob Wolfe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: # if x==1: # # the newline is inserted automatically when you type :? That's a # # Exactly. Really? The newline? I know it *indents* automatically. But it definitely doesn't insert newline when I try it. I even downloaded revision 4.63 and I really do not see any code for doing that. py-electric-colon only seems to dedent code. # functionality I would like to see, but it doesn't seem to work # this way. # # Here is fragment of my python-mode.el: Please note that this comment doesn't say anything about automatically inserting newlines, only about indenting (actually, dedenting) as needed. Anyway, this is probably becoming off-topic here. -- Best wishes, Slawomir Nowaczyk ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) Cursor: What you become when your computer crashes. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
On 2006-08-10 07:40:01, Stephen Kellett wrote:
To answer your first question: In C++/Ruby/Pascal you'd have something
like this
function()
{
loop1()
{
[...]
}
}
I really dislike that the end of loop2 is implicit rather than
explicit.
Since in the above languages indentation is optional but you still use it
(and even may use a program that provides the correct indentation if the
coder didn't do it), what prevents you from adding optional end-markers in
Python? They are not required, but they are not forbidden either, very
similar to the indenting in the above languages. Something like this:
function()
loop1()
blah
blah
loop2()
blah
loop3()
blah
#end loop3()
blah3
#end loop2()
#end loop1()
otherloop()
blah
#end otherloop()
#end function()
Of course, few people will write like this, but it probably is easier to
write a Python code formatter that adds them than it is to write a C code
formatter that adds proper indentation and provides your preferred
placement of braces.
Gerhard
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Stephen Kellett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To answer your first question: In C++/Ruby/Pascal you'd have something
like this
function()
{
loop1()
{
blah
blah
loop2()
{
blah
loop3()
{
blah
}
blah
}
}
otherloop()
{
blah
}
}
and in Python that gets to
function()
loop1()
blah
blah
loop2()
blah
loop3()
blah
blah3
otherloop()
blah
Much nicer, IMHO ;-).
I really dislike that the end of loop2 is implicit rather than
explicit. If its implicit you have to look for it. And if blah3 didn't
exist then both loop2 and loop3 would be ending implicitly.
So add one of those judicious, informative comments that some have written
about in this thread ;-)
# end loop2
where 'loop2' would typically be something like 'i loop'. If blah3 didn't
exist, you could add
# end loop3
*above* the end loop2 comment.
I personally found matching far-apart well-indented braces visually
something of a nuisance too, so I sometimes did much the same in C:
} /* end i loop */
This problem gets worse with longer functions and more indentation.
And devoting lines to braces, including those that are visually interfering
(such as those for loop3) expands blocks and makes it more likely that
blocks will span screens. This makes the problem worse.
I'm sure some people are thinking the above is elegant.
Yes, allowing programmers to add explict end-suite markers only where
needed is, to me, more elegant that forcing redundant begin-suite markers
and often unneeded end-markers.
Terry Jan Reedy
--
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Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
On 2006-08-10 06:44:04, Stephen Kellett wrote: Just found this on c.l.ruby. Seems kind of relevant. http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/51982 The Semicolon Wars Good reading :) Thanks. Gerhard -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Stephen Kellett wrote:
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Carl
Banks [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes
Stephen Kellett wrote:
I don't really understand how a closing brace helps here. Care to
explain why it helps you?
(Deeply nested long functions are evil anyways. If you have such a
I didn't write deeply nested. I wrote multiple levels of indentation.
They are not the same thing (they can be, but they don't have to be). A
lot of code gets to 3 or 4 levels of indentation quite easily. I
wouldn't call that deeply nested, not by a long shot.
To answer your first question: In C++/Ruby/Pascal you'd have something
like this
function()
{
loop1()
{
blah
blah
loop2()
{
blah
loop3()
{
blah
}
blah
}
}
otherloop()
{
blah
}
}
and in Python that gets to
function()
loop1()
blah
blah
loop2()
blah
loop3()
blah
blah3
otherloop()
blah
I really dislike that the end of loop2 is implicit rather than
explicit.
nitpicking
Well, one can argue that since Python grammar defines that a code block
ends with the first following non-blank line that one indentation level
less, it's perfectly explicit !-)
/nitpicking
But practically speaking :
If its implicit you have to look for it.
Indeed. And yes, I agree that it's not that good wrt/ readability for
any complex or long block.
OTOH, nothing prevents you to add a # end block comment where
appropriate - FWIW, I used to do it in C after the closing brace for any
lengthy block (and code blocks tend to be longer in C than in Python).
--
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Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Gerhard Fiedler wrote: function() loop1() blah blah loop2() blah loop3() blah #end loop3() blah3 #end loop2() #end loop1() otherloop() blah #end otherloop() #end function() Of course, few people will write like this, but it probably is easier to write a Python code formatter that adds them than it is to write a C code formatter that adds proper indentation and provides your preferred placement of braces. It's already there: Tools/scripts/pindent.py. Georg -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Gerhard Fiedler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/51982 The Semicolon Wars Good reading :) Thanks. Found something else relevant to this thread. The Pliant language. Appears to use whitespace indentation for grouping. http://fullpliant.org/pliant/language/parser/default_syntax.html Stephen -- Stephen Kellett Object Media Limitedhttp://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/software.html Computer Consultancy, Software Development Windows C++, Java, Assembler, Performance Analysis, Troubleshooting -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
On Mon, 07 Aug 2006 16:47:57 -0700 Jason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: # It is annoying that certain communication channels do not respect # white-space. I dislike using braces because I have to indicate my # intentions twice: once for the compiler and once for humans. I must admit I do not get this indicate intentions twice argument, even though I heard it a number of times now... It's not that braces require more work or more typing or something, after all -- at least not if one is using a decent editor. Really, typing brace after function/if/etc should add newlines and indent code as required -- automatically. Actually, for me, it is even *less* typing in C and similar languages... I probably should teach my Emacs to automatically add newline after colon in Python, just as it does after a brace in C... As soon as I figure out how to deal with dictionary literals. Hmmm. -- Best wishes, Slawomir Nowaczyk ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) Be strict when sending and tolerant when receiving. RFC 1958 - Architectural Principles of the Internet - section 3.9 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Slawomir Nowaczyk wrote: I must admit I do not get this indicate intentions twice argument, even though I heard it a number of times now... It's not that braces require more work or more typing or something, after all -- at least not if one is using a decent editor. Its not the typing, its the fact that when you say the same thing twice, there is the potential for them to get out of sync. If the method the compiler uses (braces) and the method the human uses (indentation) to determine what the code does don't agree, then a reader will be likely to misunderstand what it will actually do. One of the driving principles behind Python is that, because code will be read more often than written, readability is more important. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Carl Banks wrote: Michiel Sikma wrote: Op 8-aug-2006, om 1:49 heeft Ben Finney het volgende geschreven: As others have pointed out, these people really do exist, and they each believe their preconception -- that significant whitespace is intrinsically wrong -- is valid, and automatically makes Python a lesser language. Well, I most certainly disagree with that, of course, but you gotta admit that there's something really charming about running an auto- formatting script on a large piece of C code, turning it from an unreadable mess into a beautifully indented and organized document. The only time I get that satisfaction is when I run the formatter to format some C code I'm asked to debug. Quite often the problem was something that could have been easily spotted if the coder had used good indentation in the first place. Though they probably wouldn't have seen it anyways, considering the poor programming skills of most engineers (the classical definition, not computer engineers). The very fact the code formatters exist should tell you that grouping by indentation is superior. Carl Banks Problem being : grouping by indentation do *not* imply good indentation. For example, I had to read a piece of (almost working) code which looked like that : if cond1 : stmt1 stmt2 stmt3 if cond2: stmt4 stmt5 elif cond3:stmt6 stmt7 else: stmt8 stmt9 stmt10 stmt11 So you can tell what you want, but this code is valid but impossible to read and impossible to reindent correctly. So although I personnaly like Python, I still don't think meaningful indentation is good. Pierre -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 13:47:03 +0100, Pierre Barbier de Reuille [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Carl Banks wrote: Michiel Sikma wrote: Op 8-aug-2006, om 1:49 heeft Ben Finney het volgende geschreven: As others have pointed out, these people really do exist, and they each believe their preconception -- that significant whitespace is intrinsically wrong -- is valid, and automatically makes Python a lesser language. Well, I most certainly disagree with that, of course, but you gotta admit that there's something really charming about running an auto- formatting script on a large piece of C code, turning it from an unreadable mess into a beautifully indented and organized document. The only time I get that satisfaction is when I run the formatter to format some C code I'm asked to debug. Quite often the problem was something that could have been easily spotted if the coder had used good indentation in the first place. Though they probably wouldn't have seen it anyways, considering the poor programming skills of most engineers (the classical definition, not computer engineers). The very fact the code formatters exist should tell you that grouping by indentation is superior. Carl Banks Problem being : grouping by indentation do *not* imply good indentation. For example, I had to read a piece of (almost working) code which looked like that : if cond1 : stmt1 stmt2 stmt3 if cond2: stmt4 stmt5 elif cond3:stmt6 stmt7 else: stmt8 stmt9 stmt10 stmt11 This isn't actually legal Python. Each branch starts with a simple suite and then proceeds to try to have a full suite as well. A block can consist of one or the other, but not both. Additionally, the nested if/elif has the wrong indentation and fits into no suite. The closest legal example I can think of is: if cond1 : stmt2 stmt3 if cond2: stmt5 elif cond3: stmt7 else: stmt9 stmt10 stmt11 Which, while ugly, actually makes it much clearer what is going on. So you can tell what you want, but this code is valid but impossible to read and impossible to reindent correctly. So although I personnaly like Python, I still don't think meaningful indentation is good. If your example were actually valid (which it isn't), all it would demonstrate is that Python should be even stricter about indentation, since it would have meant that there is still some whitespace which has no meaning and therefore can be adjusted in meaingless ways by each programmer, resulting in unreadable junk. Jean-Paul -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Its not the typing, its the fact that when you say the same thing twice, there is the potential for them to get out of sync. If the method the compiler uses (braces) and the method the human uses (indentation) to determine what the code does don't agree, then a reader will be likely to misunderstand what it will actually do. One of the driving principles behind Python is that, because code will be read more often than written, readability is more important. Not to mention the errors that creep in when code is maintained, like when C code starting out as if (i SOME_CONSTANT) doSomething(); gets maintained to if (i SOME_CONSTANT) doSomething(); doSomethingDangerous(); without the programmer adding the surrounding braces. The programmer's intent is clear to me as a human, but the C compiler will disagree with me, and in this case, the compiler will be right and I'm wrong. You can (and we do, at my company) have coding standards that mandate braces around single line if()s in C/C++, but that's really just patching around the problem (and it counts on humans being consistent). Pushing the scutwork down onto tools is not as good a solution as eliminating the scutwork, especially when it shouldn't be necessary at all... -- // Brett g Porter * [EMAIL PROTECTED] // http://www.bgporter.net/blog -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes of the driving principles behind Python is that, because code will be read more often than written, readability is more important. In which case, for long functions with multiple levels of indentation Python fails compared to languages that use braces or END or end; etc. Stephen -- Stephen Kellett Object Media Limitedhttp://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/software.html Computer Consultancy, Software Development Windows C++, Java, Assembler, Performance Analysis, Troubleshooting -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
of the driving principles behind Python is that, because code will be read more often than written, readability is more important. Stephen In which case, for long functions with multiple levels of Stephen indentation Python fails compared to languages that use braces Stephen or END or end; etc. No. In that case Python makes it more readily apparent that your code is too complex. With C, Java, C++, Perl or FORTRAN you just smush everything over to the left and pretend it's not. ;-) Skip -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Gerhard Fiedler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes But there is well-written code that is as much as reasonably possible self-documenting, meaning easy to read and understand, with a clear structure, helpful names, appropriate types (where applicable) etc etc. But that code is documenting what is does, not what it should do. That is the fallacy of self-documenting. It is simply a bogus concept. If you have the two together then if they match, most likely the program is written correctly. If you have only the one you can't make the comparison. I don't think you should have a line of comment per line of code. I once worked in a place where they insisted on 1 comment per 5 lines of code. I was the #1 troublemaker there after they created that rule - I hated it. It resulted in a lot of bogus comments that added nothing. Its what you write and where. The problem with the self-documenting crowd is they don't write anything so you can't follow their assumptions in the comments. It should be as sparse as you can get but enough so that each block/chunk of code can be validated by comparing it with the comment that describes what you are doing. My first code was basic on a VIC-20, then assembly on a variety of different 6502/6510 based machines (C64, C16, Atari...). I didn't bother much with comments back then. I was writing games and once they are done you never revisit them so you didn't care too much as long as you got the job done. I thought it was reasonably obvious what each function did etc. Ding! I went back some years later and looked at some of my own code. I had little idea what a lot of it did. I started commenting my code after that. So when it came time to port a game written for the 6510/6516/6502 to the 68000 (Atari ST) and IBM PC-AT (80286) the comments came in handy. Sadly the game never saw the light of day for legal reasons outside of my control. The game was a copy of the wonderful arcade game Dingo written by Ashbury Computers and Graphics (the team that later became Ultimate Play the Game who wrote for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum very successfully in the 1980s). A bit of history for you :-) Since someone mentioned assemblers and significant whitespace and I'm rambling about assembly: I don't every remember whitespace being significant for any of the assemblers I used (650x, 630x, 680x, 8085, 80286, 68000). There was a convention though - you indented to column 8 to write the mnemonics and used the first 6 or 7 chars for labels for branch/jmp instructions. Come on, if you have been in the business for 23 years you know what I mean. If you mean, should code be well written, thought about, well formatted, sensible class/variable names, redesigned if you find a better way, sure no problem with that. Stephen -- Stephen Kellett Object Media Limitedhttp://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/software.html Computer Consultancy, Software Development Windows C++, Java, Assembler, Performance Analysis, Troubleshooting -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 05:00:20 -0700 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: # Slawomir Nowaczyk wrote: # # I must admit I do not get this indicate intentions twice argument, # even though I heard it a number of times now... It's not that braces # require more work or more typing or something, after all -- at least # not if one is using a decent editor. # # Its not the typing, its the fact that when you say the same thing # twice, there is the potential for them to get out of sync. Which, in my book, is the *right* thing... if I see a wrongly indented piece of code, that's a good sign that it needs to be checked. It's the same principle as in if documentation and code disagree, both are probably wrong. YMMV, of course. # If the method the compiler uses (braces) and the method the human # uses (indentation) to determine what the code does don't agree, # then a reader will be likely to misunderstand what it will actually # do. Well, not in my experience. In my experience, such discrepancies usually only show up in places where something bad happens anyway. # One of the driving principles behind Python is that, because code # will be read more often than written, readability is more # important. That's exactly my point :) -- Best wishes, Slawomir Nowaczyk ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) Today advance is so rapid that even the astronauts who set foot on the moon in 1969 had never seen a digital watch -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:13:21 -0500 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: # # of the driving principles behind Python is that, because code will be # read more often than written, readability is more important. # # Stephen In which case, for long functions with multiple levels of # Stephen indentation Python fails compared to languages that use braces # Stephen or END or end; etc. # # No. In that case Python makes it more readily apparent that your code is # too complex. With C, Java, C++, Perl or FORTRAN you just smush everything # over to the left and pretend it's not. ;-) Well, one space is sufficient indentations for Python, right? So even on 80 column screen, you can easily fit about 40 levels of nesting before it becomes a real problem :D In other words, it is possible to write bad code in any language. We should focus on making it easier to write good code, not to make writing bad code difficult. -- Best wishes, Slawomir Nowaczyk ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Stephen Kellett wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes of the driving principles behind Python is that, because code will be read more often than written, readability is more important. In which case, for long functions with multiple levels of indentation Python fails compared to languages that use braces or END or end; etc. I don't really understand how a closing brace helps here. Care to explain why it helps you? (Deeply nested long functions are evil anyways. If you have such a function then you have bigger problems than minor defects in readability. :) Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Slawomir # No. In that case Python makes it more readily apparent Slawomir # that your code is too complex. With C, Java, C++, Perl or Slawomir # FORTRAN you just smush everything over to the left and Slawomir # pretend it's not. ;-) Slawomir Well, one space is sufficient indentations for Python, right? So even Slawomir on 80 column screen, you can easily fit about 40 levels of nesting Slawomir before it becomes a real problem :D Oh, sure. Hence the smiley in my post... Smileys all around. I'm happy. Skip -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Slawomir Nowaczyk wrote: Really, typing brace after function/if/etc should add newlines and indent code as required -- automatically. Actually, for me, it is even *less* typing in C and similar languages... I probably should teach my Emacs to automatically add newline after colon in Python, just as it does after a brace in C... As soon as I figure out how to deal with dictionary literals. Hmmm. Are you sure? My Emacs already know how to do it with the help of python-mode and magic function py-newline-and-indent. emacs-version 21.3.1 py-version $Revision: 4.63 $ Regards, Rob -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Pierre Barbier de Reuille wrote: Problem being : grouping by indentation do *not* imply good indentation. By itself, it doesn't. But with grouping by indentation, bad indentation no longer results from mere carelessness, which is no small thing. Although Python doesn't do this, it is possible to mandate a specific indent (4 spaces, say), or at least a reasonable consistent indent, which would indeed all but guarantee good indenting. (I say all but only to account for deliberately misleading code, perhaps using clever line breaks and comments.) For example, I had to read a piece of (almost working) code which looked like that : if cond1 : stmt1 stmt2 stmt3 if cond2: stmt4 stmt5 elif cond3:stmt6 stmt7 else: stmt8 stmt9 stmt10 stmt11 So you can tell what you want, but this code is valid but impossible to read and impossible to reindent correctly. So although I personnaly like Python, I still don't think meaningful indentation is good. Even if this were legal code (it isn't), it's still more transparent than some of the C code I've seen. Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Op 9-aug-2006, om 16:48 heeft Carl Banks het volgende geschreven:
Even if this were legal code (it isn't), it's still more transparent
than some of the C code I've seen.
Carl Banks
Still kind of too bad that means there won't ever be an International
Obfuscated Python Code Contest.
#define _ -F00||--F-OO--;
int F=00,OO=00;main(){F_OO();printf(%1.3f\n,4.*-F/OO/OO);}F_OO()
{
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}
:)
Michiel
(source: http://www0.us.ioccc.org/years.html#1988)
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
infidel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? Are they really that stupid/petty? Are they really out there at all? They almost sound like a mythical caste of tasteless heathens that we have invented. It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to believe it's as common as we've come to believe. I like Python, but I do wish it used braces instead, if only because every editor I'm likely to use supports brace matching, which makes it easy to (for example) jump to the bottom or top of a block. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Michiel Sikma wrote:
Op 9-aug-2006, om 16:48 heeft Carl Banks het volgende geschreven:
Even if this were legal code (it isn't), it's still more transparent
than some of the C code I've seen.
Carl Banks
Still kind of too bad that means there won't ever be an International
Obfuscated Python Code Contest.
#define _ -F00||--F-OO--;
int F=00,OO=00;main(){F_OO();printf(%1.3f\n,4.*-F/OO/OO);}F_OO()
{
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}
:)
Michiel
(source: http://www0.us.ioccc.org/years.html#1988)
*yawn* ;)
Carl Banks
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
On 2006-08-09 11:10:20, Stephen Kellett wrote: If you mean, should code be well written, thought about, well formatted, sensible class/variable names, redesigned if you find a better way, sure no problem with that. I mean the code should be written so that as few as possible comments are necessary to understand it. I don't mean that additional comments are a bad thing. Gerhard -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Dennis Lee Bieber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I forget what COBOL used, but it had a few fields of its own. Not in fixed columns. Surprisingly, layout in COBOL was more closely related to Python, in that indentation was significant, but the number of characters per indent was up to the programmer. -- - Tim Roberts, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Providenza Boekelheide, Inc. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Op 8-aug-2006, om 1:49 heeft Ben Finney het volgende geschreven: As others have pointed out, these people really do exist, and they each believe their preconception -- that significant whitespace is intrinsically wrong -- is valid, and automatically makes Python a lesser language. Well, I most certainly disagree with that, of course, but you gotta admit that there's something really charming about running an auto- formatting script on a large piece of C code, turning it from an unreadable mess into a beautifully indented and organized document. I actually sometimes intentionally programmed ugly code so that I could do that. I kind of miss it. :) Michiel -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
infidel wrote: Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? You may find some on comp.lang.ruby... -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
infidel wrote: Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? Are they really that stupid/petty? Are they really out there at all? They almost sound like a mythical caste of tasteless heathens that we have invented. It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to believe it's as common as we've come to believe. Some of it may be a reaction from old-timers who remember FORTRAN, where (if memory serves), code had to start in column 16 and code continutations had to be an asterik in column 72 (it's been many years since I've done any work in FORTRAN, but you get the idea) Or it may be a reaction from Assembler, which is also quite column-centric (is Assembler still taught in schools??). But most likely, it's different. It's easier to complain about things than to actually check them out. Recently I had a friend tell me that they absolutely hated a certain tv personality/author. When I asked if they had ever watched the person or read one of their books, they said Why should I? I hate them!!. I think the same attitude comes into play with computer languages. One more thing. I have many friends that love to program Perl. Without bashing the language, I find it ironic when they say There's more than one way to do it but inisit that I should be using Perl while they quote Python as There's only one way to do it though (most) Python coders I know are fairly comforatble dealing with multiple languages. --greg -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
One of the most stupid language-definition decisions that most people have come across is the Makefile format. snippage/ Hope that goes some way to explaining one possible reason why rational people can consistently react in horror to the issue. Ah, thanks for that. This peek into history makes the irrational fear of significant whitespace seem a little less irrational. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
All societies demonise outsiders to some extent. It's an unfortunate human (and animal) trait. Which is why I questioned it. So just block your ears when the propaganda vans with the loud-speakers on top drive past your dwelling :-) Funny how using python makes me feel like a member of some kind of rebellion against the empire. Where I work it's all VB, VB.NET, and ASP.NET. I've been the lone voice in the wilderness for so long that I've become an inside joke. I actually have a certificate that says Most likely to re-write the system in Python. *sigh* -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Am Mon, 07 Aug 2006 14:43:04 -0700 schrieb infidel: Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? Are they really that stupid/petty? Are they really out there at all? They almost sound like a mythical caste of tasteless heathens that we have invented. It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to believe it's as common as we've come to believe. I like python, but sometimes i don't like that python allows spaces and tabs. It would be easier if you had less choice and must use four spaces. That's one small argument against the current whitespace syntax in python. Thomas -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: infidel wrote: Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? Are they really that stupid/petty? Are they really out there at all? They almost sound like a mythical caste of tasteless heathens that we have invented. It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to believe it's as common as we've come to believe. Some of it may be a reaction from old-timers who remember FORTRAN, where (if memory serves), code had to start in column 16 and code continutations had to be an asterik in column 72 (it's been many years since I've done any work in FORTRAN, but you get the idea) Column 7 was the start, 6 the one for continuation; 1-5 and 73-80 were ignored by the compiler and could be used for numbering, grouping c. Been many years in my case, too, but as I was a mainly-Fortran guru for several years in my career, it's hard to forget;-). Or it may be a reaction from Assembler, which is also quite column-centric (is Assembler still taught in schools??). I never used a column-centric Assembler: even the first assemblers I used, in the '70s (6502, Z80, a mini called HP1000, VAX/VMS when it was just out, BAL/370, ...) were all column-indifferent. The HP1000 did not even have a punched-card reader: it used punched _tape_ instead (quite a popular device then, as it came with teletypes typically used as consoles), so keeping track of columns would have a royal mess:-). I'm pretty sure you're still _able_ to take SOME Assembler-based course in most universities, but you need to strive pretty hard for the purpose... it's definitely not in the default curriculum, even for EEs, much less CSs. Alex -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], infidel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? Are they really that stupid/petty? Are they really out there at all? They almost sound like a mythical caste of tasteless heathens that we have invented. It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to believe it's as common as we've come to believe. When I put on my Python evangelist hat, I do get complaints about that regularly. -- Aahz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) * http://www.pythoncraft.com/ Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. --Brian W. Kernighan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Thomas Guettler wrote: I like python, but sometimes i don't like that python allows spaces and tabs. It would be easier if you had less choice and must use four spaces. That's the nice thing about Python. It doesn't care about indentation distance, it just wants some and consistent. I like the idea that humans see the whitespace as significant anyway, so document the fact and use it (I presume this came from Occam). What I don't like so much is that the _ends_ of blocks are less visually obvious. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
On 2006-08-08 12:49:35, Aahz wrote: Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? Are they really that stupid/petty? Are they really out there at all? They almost sound like a mythical caste of tasteless heathens that we have invented. It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to believe it's as common as we've come to believe. When I put on my Python evangelist hat, I do get complaints about that regularly. Being new to Python, and the indenting thing being the one feature that convinced me to take a serious look at Python, there's almost only one conclusion for me: they must not like self-documenting code... :) Gerhard -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Gerhard Fiedler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes conclusion for me: they must not like self-documenting code... :) Oh dear. So if the code is wrong it is self documenting? Comments document what the code should do. The code shows what the code actually does. Also from a maintenance perspective reading comments is a lot faster than reading the code. For a whitespace significant language this can be very helpful when the formatting gets mangled for some reason. There is no such thing as self-documenting code. People that say they don't need to document their code because its self documenting - no hire. I've been writing and selling software for 23 years now and I still keep hearing this bull about self documenting code. Sigh. Stephen -- Stephen Kellett Object Media Limitedhttp://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/software.html Computer Consultancy, Software Development Windows C++, Java, Assembler, Performance Analysis, Troubleshooting -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Michiel Sikma wrote: Op 8-aug-2006, om 1:49 heeft Ben Finney het volgende geschreven: As others have pointed out, these people really do exist, and they each believe their preconception -- that significant whitespace is intrinsically wrong -- is valid, and automatically makes Python a lesser language. Well, I most certainly disagree with that, of course, but you gotta admit that there's something really charming about running an auto- formatting script on a large piece of C code, turning it from an unreadable mess into a beautifully indented and organized document. The only time I get that satisfaction is when I run the formatter to format some C code I'm asked to debug. Quite often the problem was something that could have been easily spotted if the coder had used good indentation in the first place. Though they probably wouldn't have seen it anyways, considering the poor programming skills of most engineers (the classical definition, not computer engineers). The very fact the code formatters exist should tell you that grouping by indentation is superior. Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
On 2006-08-08 19:02:27, Stephen Kellett wrote: In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Gerhard Fiedler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes conclusion for me: they must not like self-documenting code... :) Oh dear. So if the code is wrong it is self documenting? ?? I'm not sure you are actually responding to what I wrote. I did not make any affirmation about a relationship between correctness of code and its self-documenting properties. Comments document what the code should do. The code shows what the code actually does. That's only in theory like this, and then only in a bad theory. I'm sure in 23 years you have seen as many code comments as I have that documented what a previous version of the code should have done... Also from a maintenance perspective reading comments is a lot faster than reading the code. This depends a lot on the code, the comments and the reader. I prefer code that reads as fast or faster than inline comments and coders that read code as fast as comments :) (I'm not talking about useful header comments. But even these can be made a lot more succinct through appropriate coding.) There is no such thing as self-documenting code. But there is well-written code that is as much as reasonably possible self-documenting, meaning easy to read and understand, with a clear structure, helpful names, appropriate types (where applicable) etc etc. Come on, if you have been in the business for 23 years you know what I mean. Self-documenting -- as used by me -- is always meant as a goal to be approached gradually, not a state where you are or not; as much as possible is always implied, the question is more or less not whether or not. I thought that was somehow obvious... :) People that say they don't need to document their code because its self documenting - no hire. People that need a line of comment for every line of code -- no hire either :) It's the right balance. This is not really a subject for quick shots. And it is utterly off-topic for my post. Here's the long version of what I wrote: Python's indent-based code structure is more self-documenting than for example the brace-based structure of C in the following way. In C, it is common practice to document the code structure by indenting. Indenting in C is mere /documentation/ -- it is not required for the code to work as written, but it is required (or commonly considered required) to document its structure. When done properly, it's part of the self-documentation of C code: you don't write a bunch of white space-stripped C and then document the structure of that blob; you document the structure in the code by correctly indenting it. However, it is easy to write C code where the indenting and the structure are out of sync. (I know that there are tools for that, but still...) In Python, the indenting is not a documentation convention dissociated from the code structure, it /is/ the code structure. In that sense, Python code is more self-documenting than C. Gerhard -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? Are they really that stupid/petty? Are they really out there at all? They almost sound like a mythical caste of tasteless heathens that we have invented. It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to believe it's as common as we've come to believe. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
infidel wrote: Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? Are they really that stupid/petty? Are they really out there at all? They almost sound like a mythical caste of tasteless heathens that we have invented. It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to believe it's as common as we've come to believe. I have a coworker who dislikes Python for the whitespace. He likes the idea that if someone is silly enough to put a whole program on one line, they can put it back together by following the braces. He also likes that the compiler can compile the program even if a normal person can't read it. I've pointed out that we format our code with the whitespace anyway. He points out that if some code gets accidentally dedented, it is difficult for another programmer to determine which lines were supposed to be in the indented block. I pointed out that if someone accidentally moves a curly brace, the same problem can occur. Anecdotally, I've never had either problem. Sadly, people who do dislike the whitespace do exist. I have also talked with several other programmers who were very turned off about the white-space thing and wouldn't give the language a chance. Eric S. Raymond wrote enthusiastically about Python, but was initially turned off by the whitespace rules. (See http://www.python.org/about/success/esr/; for details.) I personally love that my logically formatted code imparts information logically to the language. (I haven't seen a good hate-us-for-our-whitespace thread go on for awhile. I do remember some good We like Python, Now Add Our Favorite C/C++/LISP/INTERCAL Features or We'll Leave threads on this newsgroup.) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
infidel wrote: Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? Are they really that stupid/petty? Are they really out there at all? They almost sound like a mythical caste of tasteless heathens that we have invented. It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to believe it's as common as we've come to believe. Actually, some of the guys I work with complained about Python when they first had to learn it for our Zope server. One of them is an old-school Unix guy who spent the last 20+ years doing procedural languages with funky syntax, like C. The other one is a VB.NET junkie who I don't think has much experience outside of MS languages, except maybe Java. One of the complaints they had for the first few weeks was the white space issue and the fact Python doesn't have brackets or semicolons. Obviously they learned to deal with it but they sure made it seem like it was a painful transition. I think the biggest pain was the fact that they are forced to indent their code now so they can't be lazy anymore. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
infidel wrote: Where are they-who-hate-us-for-our-whitespace? Are they really that stupid/petty? Are they really out there at all? They almost sound like a mythical caste of tasteless heathens that we have invented. All societies demonise outsiders to some extent. It's an unfortunate human (and animal) trait. In some societies, this is directed from the top. Very fortunately, this is AFAICT not the case in the Python community. It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to believe it's as common as we've come to believe. So just block your ears when the propaganda vans with the loud-speakers on top drive past your dwelling :-) ... However, meaninglessly significant whitespace at the *other* end of a line can be annoying: # a = \ ... 1 # a 1 # b = \ File stdin, line 1 b = \ ^ SyntaxError: invalid token Huh? Can't see what the problem is? Maybe this exaggerated example may help: # c = \ File stdin, line 1 c = \ ^ SyntaxError: invalid token Cheers, John -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Jason wrote: He points out that if some code gets accidentally dedented, it is difficult for another programmer to determine which lines were supposed to be in the indented block. I pointed out that if someone accidentally moves a curly brace, the same problem can occur. I like significant whitespace, but a forum, newsgroup manager (like Google Groups in the beginning), email management program, blog comment system, etc, may strip leading whitespace, and it usually doesn't move braces. A language (like Python) doesn't exist alone in vacuum, it exists in an ecosystem of many other programs/systems, and if they don't manage leading whitespace well, such language may have some problems :-) Bye, bearophile -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
infidel [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It just sounds like so much trivial nitpickery that it's hard to believe it's as common as we've come to believe. As others have pointed out, these people really do exist, and they each believe their preconception -- that significant whitespace is intrinsically wrong -- is valid, and automatically makes Python a lesser language. One of the most stupid language-definition decisions that most people have come across is the Makefile format. If you're not familiar with it, spaces and tabs are *each* significant. Specifically, putting spaces where a tab is required will result in a file that, while it may be visually identical to a correctly formatted file, doesn't parse correctly. In hindsight it's trivial to predict the needlessly painful learning process that ensues. This is a very painful memory for many programmers, and the general opinion that results is syntactically significant whitespace is bad. This is the phrase that always gets brought out, and it's often clear that the person hasn't considered *why* it's bad. The issue with the Makefile format (lampooned wonderfully by the Whitespace programming language) is that *invisible* differences in whitespace should not be significant. In a Makefile, you *must* mix spaces and tabs in the same file; this leaves the door wide open to invisible differences. In Python, an admonishment of always indent each file consistently suffices. Hope that goes some way to explaining one possible reason why rational people can consistently react in horror to the issue. -- \ Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to | `\ another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one!' -- | _o__) C.S. Lewis | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jason wrote: He points out that if some code gets accidentally dedented, it is difficult for another programmer to determine which lines were supposed to be in the indented block. I pointed out that if someone accidentally moves a curly brace, the same problem can occur. I like significant whitespace, but a forum, newsgroup manager (like Google Groups in the beginning), email management program, blog comment system, etc, may strip leading whitespace, and it usually doesn't move braces. A language (like Python) doesn't exist alone in vacuum, it exists in an ecosystem of many other programs/systems, and if they don't manage leading whitespace well, such language may have some problems :-) Bye, bearophile Certainly, you are correct. Most of the time, I zip up any source code for email purposes. But newsgroup managers are certainly an issue. For comment thingies online, the preformat tag is your friend, too. It is annoying that certain communication channels do not respect white-space. I dislike using braces because I have to indicate my intentions twice: once for the compiler and once for humans. In the situations where I use Python, though, I haven't had a problem. In the situations where my coworker is using Python (code updates through CVS), he also shouldn't have a problem. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
Jason wrote: But newsgroup managers are certainly an issue. For comment thingies online, the preformat tag is your friend, too. Time ago I used to add a | or something similar at the beginning of lines, to avoid the leading whitespace stripping done by Google Groups. Other (silly) solutions are to add explicitely the number of indents at the beginning of a line (2 digits suffice), or to even add explicit #end comments just under the dedents, so a script can read such ending comments and reconstruct the original Python indentations... (lines splitted with \ and similar require some extra care). Bye, bearophile -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: do people really complain about significant whitespace?
He points out that if some code gets accidentally dedented, it is difficult for another programmer to determine which lines were supposed to be in the indented block. I pointed out that if someone accidentally moves a curly brace, the same problem can occur. Anecdotally, I've never had either problem. I have many times found that in moving a multi-screen block of code from one place to another (where the indent is less or more) then I have trouble re-indenting the code. That is not to say that I don't in the end prefer the significant whitespace, but I have had errors moving code like: if .. try: .. except .. else .. where it wound up (with the help of the emacs tab key) as if .. try: .. except .. else .. . I attempt to be careful, but certainly it has happened to me. Jim -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Python with no significant whitespace
Hi,all
Is there anybody trying to release a modification version to current
python source code with no significant whitespace, say replacing whitespace
by {}
like C or java. I do *NOT* mean whitespace is good or bad, just
want to know.
Best Regards,
mep
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Re: Python with no significant whitespace
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 11:31:18 +0800, mep [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi,all
Is there anybody trying to release a modification version to current
python source code with no significant whitespace, say replacing whitespace
by {}
like C or java. I do *NOT* mean whitespace is good or bad, just
want to know.
http://logix.livelogix.com/
don't know why you'd bother tho. any competant programmer already
indents code exactly like python requires you to.
Stephen
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Re: Python with no significant whitespace
Just though I'd point out that Logix *does* use whitespace for delimiting blocks. Or rather, it can use whitespace, and the languages that come as standard do. With Logix you could quite easily make a version of Python with, e.g., braces instead of whitespace for delimiting blocks. That's probably what the Stephen was getting at. Tom. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
