Re: boring the reader to death (wasRe: Lambda: the Ultimate DesignFlaw
Ville Vainio wrote: Read up on list comprehensions and generator expressions. You'll see the terse side of Python (and genexps look kinda poetic too ;-). I am familiar with lc:s/genexps, I usually program in scheme which also has them (srfi-42). They're very nice and I use them a lot. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: boring the reader to death (wasRe: Lambda: the Ultimate DesignFlaw
> "Sunnan" == Sunnan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Sunnan> languages". I'm not sure whether I'd consider python Sunnan> particularly terse, though, but I don't know enough about Sunnan> it yet. (I've read a Read up on list comprehensions and generator expressions. You'll see the terse side of Python (and genexps look kinda poetic too ;-). -- Ville Vainio http://tinyurl.com/2prnb -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: boring the reader to death (wasRe: Lambda: the Ultimate DesignFlaw
Donn Cave wrote: That's an odd thing to say. Poetry is verbose, florid? Python is Dutch. Ha. I'm vaguely dutch, whatever that means. I would say if there is a sister word for "Programming" in the english language, it isn't Poetry and it surely isn't Prose. It's Dialectic. I appreciate the idea of "Code Poetry", and I find more than a few coders out there with more than a rudimentary appreciation of Poetry as well, but I don't like the analogy. No slight to Poetry is intended. Rather, I intend it as a compliment. Code has an almost entirely practical purpose, Malbol et al excluded. Poetry, except in cases of extraordinarily bad poetry, may have little "practical" purpose. Now dialectic. I like that word. And I think the art of programming is somewhere in the Late-Medeival period right now. From Merriam Webster, meanings 1,5,6 seem rather sympathetic to texts used in the creation of software: Dialectic 1. LOGIC 5. Any systematic reasoning, exposition, or argument that juxtaposes opposed or contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict/an intellectual exchange of ideas 6 : the dialectical tension or opposition between two interacting forces or elements One way to look at Code is as a textual abstraction of a design. Having been flattened from brain-space into a two dimension matrix of latin glyphs, certain semantic/meta-data is typically omitted. Thus a classical programming problem in many languages: The "Write-only-code" syndrom. You wrote it, it runs, but you're afraid even to touch it yourself. Python is stronger than other languages I have used. When I go back to Python code I've written long enough ago to have forgotten everything about, I am more able to pick it up and work with it than I am with other less agile languages. I'm not merely talking about pedantic details of literal code-readability, I'm talking about the ability to intuit design from implementation, and the orthogonality of the design of the system to the to the faculty of human reason. (In not so many words: Python fits my brain.) Warren -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: boring the reader to death (wasRe: Lambda: the Ultimate DesignFlaw
Scott David Daniels wrote: No, poetry is to be read slowly and carefully, appreciating the nuance at every point. You should be able to read "past" python, while poetry is at least as much about the form of the expression as it is about what is being expressed. Right, I agree with these descriptions of python vs "the poetry languages". I'm not sure whether I'd consider python particularly terse, though, but I don't know enough about it yet. (I've read a couple of programs but never started a project of my own in it, mainly because I love poetry. I can see the appeal of a "prose language", though.) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: boring the reader to death (wasRe: Lambda: the Ultimate DesignFlaw
Donn Cave wrote: Quoth Scott David Daniels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: | Sunnan wrote: | > ...Because what is "boring"? The opposite of dense, tense, intense. Utterly | > predictable; it's like the combination of all my prejudices. Even before | > I knew, I thought "Bet Python separates statements from expressions". | | Python is for terse, pithy prose; Python is not for poetry. That's an odd thing to say. Poetry is verbose, florid? No, poetry is to be read slowly and carefully, appreciating the nuance at every point. You should be able to read "past" python, while poetry is at least as much about the form of the expression as it is about what is being expressed. Python is Dutch. Donn -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: boring the reader to death (wasRe: Lambda: the Ultimate DesignFlaw
Quoth Scott David Daniels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: | Sunnan wrote: | > ...Because what is "boring"? The opposite of dense, tense, intense. Utterly | > predictable; it's like the combination of all my prejudices. Even before | > I knew, I thought "Bet Python separates statements from expressions". | | Python is for terse, pithy prose; Python is not for poetry. That's an odd thing to say. Poetry is verbose, florid? Python is Dutch. Donn -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: boring the reader to death (wasRe: Lambda: the Ultimate DesignFlaw
Sunnan wrote: ...Because what is "boring"? The opposite of dense, tense, intense. Utterly predictable; it's like the combination of all my prejudices. Even before I knew, I thought "Bet Python separates statements from expressions". Python is for terse, pithy prose; Python is not for poetry. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
