-Original Message-
From: Kirby Urner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 4:09 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: edu-sig@python.org; 'John Zelle'
Subject: RE: [Edu-sig] quantum instance
You want to have your intuition as to someone else's intuition control
- Original Message -
From: Kirby Urner [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 12:34 pm
Subject: RE: [Edu-sig] quantum instance
I'm in no way persuaded that you have some special insight into
what the
property feature is really intended to provide, based on some
You win.
But only in the sense that you get the last word.
Got it.
I'll keep in mind you've not changed your position.
Kirby
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In a message of Sun, 18 Sep 2005 16:45:21 PDT, Kirby Urner writes:
Perhaps my version of Python is evolving at a faster rate, and in differe
nt
directions, than you necessarily need in your version, for what you're
trying to do. What's the harm in that, as long as your code still runs?
Kirby
Arthur:
My thought is that it is highly preferable - except in highly unusual
circumstances - to call methods through method call syntax and to access
attributes through attribute access syntax. For reasons that are only
obvious - we know better whether we are accessing something akin to a
Perhaps my version of Python is evolving at a faster rate, and in
different directions, than you necessarily need in your version,
for what you're trying to do. What's the harm in that, as long
as your code still runs?
Kirby
Laura:
There is enormous potential harm in this. The
- Original Message -
From: Kirby Urner [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Monday, September 19, 2005 12:18 pm
Subject: RE: [Edu-sig] quantum instance
I want to be able to express user intuitions about what's a method and
what's an attribute drawing from a knowledge domain. I don't want
Working with, rather than against, others' misaligned intuitions is
the anti-thesis of the scientific spirit.
Which is maybe why I'm working against your misaligned intuitions. ;-D
You don't propose that there is no meaningful distinction between
methods and attributes.
You might be
- Original Message -
From: Kirby Urner [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [Edu-sig] quantum instance
How a particular programming language needs to work to satisfy a
use case
needn't trump the basic intuitions of the user.
You want to have your intuition as to someone else's intuition
You want to have your intuition as to someone else's intuition control -
in a scientific setting. We are at unscience**2 - before we get started.
No, we're having a meeting of the minds, me and the client. I go through
iterations of the API, and the client lets me know if I'm on the right
My clients use a version of Python compatible to my own.
But have no interest in what I might tend to think they might tend to
think.
They like information - hard information.
Art
Yes, well, we all have limited experience, depending to some degree on which
clients we work for. I
-Original Message-
From: Kirby Urner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I'm glad I'm not confined to using your version of Python.
My other problem is this:
Did somebody forgot to mention to me, pre-Python2.2, that the language was
missing a fundamental construct for the proper
But I do I think we have no choice but to teach in a way that let's our
students know there are competing versions in play. I think *that* with a
very high level of confidence.
Art
Different teachers will inevitably bring their own spin to their teaching.
I can well imagine a class in
Apparently many programmers felt this lack, including Guido, and added
the missing capability.
Can you please support your statement!
The fact that it was added isn't evidence programmers wanted it added?
Guido added properties to the language. No doubt. He says they are about
managed
Arthur wrote:
My only objection to it being there - in fact - is the lack of consensus as
to the compelling reason it is necessary. There seems to be agreement, in
fact, on only this one aspect of the reason for its presence as a built_in
function. The fact that the reason is
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of John Zelle
Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2005 11:03 PM
To: edu-sig@python.org
Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] quantum instance
Arthur wrote:
My only objection to it being there - in fact
Me
Would we have flatted the area method before properties, through the
__getattr__ mechanism. Were properties put into the language to make it
more convenient for us to do this kind of thing - *as a way of
encouraging this kind of pattern*. I think you - implicated or
explicitly -
The version of Python I run - Python 2.4 (#60, Nov 30 2004, 11:49:19) -
discourages me from writing extra code for the purpose of revealing less.
It comes with no properties exception of which I am aware.
...
Art
Hey Art, this is making very little sense to me. All versions of 2.4
Your Python version - from what I can see - works different.
Art
OK, fun. My Python version goes more like this:
Consider if client Z, inhabitant of knowledge domain X, would tend to think
of this object-related foo as a noun or a verb, e.g. without knowing
anything about Python or
-Original Message-
From: Kirby Urner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2005 9:07 PM
To: 'Arthur'; edu-sig@python.org
Subject: RE: [Edu-sig] quantum instance
Your Python version - from what I can see - works different.
Art
OK, fun. My Python
-Original Message-
From: Arthur [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I'm confused I tell you ;)
I think what I am trying to communicate is the fact that folks like me are
not really interested in being:
taught how to program
Though we are anxious to be taught how to
program
What could be
Arthur,
It often seems to me that I agree with you, but you think that you don't
agree with me. This may be one of those cases.
Arthur wrote:
-Original Message-
I'm confused I tell you ;)
Scott David's Triangle did *not* use a property for area. I think that was
quite
I don't see you as confused.
Can't we agree about anything?
I'm confused I tell you ;)
Scott David's Triangle did *not* use a property for area. I think that was
quite purposeful.
I was referring to my Triangle class in
I think what I am trying to communicate is the fact that folks like me are
not really interested in being:
taught how to program
Though we are anxious to be taught how to
program
What could be clearer?
Art
I think you've made it clear that you don't like to have a lot of
-Original Message-
From: Kirby Urner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
OTOH, his general explanation for the use case of properties in respect
to
API design seemed to me to be a perfect defense of the extensive use of
a
pattern of:
@property
def getx(self):
return self._x
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Dethe Elza
As Guido has said, properties don't do anything that couldn't be done
before with __getattr__ and __setattr__, they just give a cleaner
syntax for it. Since VPython makes extensive use of
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:edu-sig-
[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Arthur
the
whole nine yards and using the further convenience of its decorator form.
Oops. Forgot. Can't use @property for a set. Because of course @property
is itself in some sense an
Arthur wrote:
... But I still don't see the connection to XP programming, API design
Do you truly not understand my position, or merely disagree with it?
--Scott David Daniels
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Thanks John, you set what I meant.
On 14-Sep-05, at 8:21 AM, Arthur wrote:
Oops. Forgot. Can't use @property for a set. Because of course
@property
is itself in some sense an accident of history.
Not so much an accident of history: property was never intended as a
decorator and probably
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Dethe Elza
Not every part of the language needs to fit into an introduction.
There are obscure parts of English that not everyone uses day to day,
but that doesn't mean I argue with poets who use
Art:
I would probably myself opt for the convenience of property, maybe going
the whole nine yards and using the further convenience of its decorator
form.
Footnote:
Although I think Scott did an admirable job of showing how the property
function could be served with the new decorator
This started with a Triangle class.
It has 3 sides,
It had 3 sides that I made open to rebinding, such that mytri.a = 6 could be
used to change the shape of the triangle at run time, ergo its area -- which
is why I wanted to see area as both an attribute (makes sense) and a
read-only one at
Arthur wrote:
Scott David Daniels wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I think teaching programming outside a context - as an abstract
discipline - is unavoidably problematic in this regard.
I would have more sympathy if you would subscribe to the same philosophy
for geometry and mathematics. As
Scott David Daniels wrote:
Arthur wrote:
I am not convinced programming as a stand-alone subject cannot be optimum
as an approach.
Could you restate this?
The art is in the clear expression of a solution to a problem..
and
but the art lies not only in a perfected
Scott David Daniels wrote:
I would say that writing computer programs without an understanding of
computer science is certainly possible (and I've worked with lots of
people who do so), but to write well, and to write are not the same
skill at all.
Let me sign on to your point of view. I am
Arthur wrote:
Back to where I started to get testy:
properties and decorators
I honestly believe that if I had seen them in my first Python Triangle
class I would have judged myself to be looking at a language that might
be swell - for somebody else. But a little too magical,
Scott David Daniels wrote:
I understand that properties and decorators look like obscure magic.
I ask you to suspend judgment on those (an act of faith), until you
understand why such features seriously assist the readability of code
and designs. This act of faith can be based on a respect for
Arthur,
You may be happy to know that hard-core computer scientists cannot
agree on the benefits of abstractions such as decorators.
Paul Graham attributes power and elegance to the tersest languages[1]
[2], claiming that fewer lines of code means fewer bug, less time
writing the code,
You could read up on __getattr__, __getattribute__, and
friends in the Language References section 3.3.2:
Customizing attribute access
and friends include descriptors, so that the discussion
about properties here had actually led me into some better
understanding of this realm of Python.
Scott David Daniels wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
...
I think teaching programming outside a context - as an abstract
discipline - is unavoidably problematic in this regard.
I would have more sympathy if you would subscribe to the same philosophy
for geometry and mathematics. As
I pretty much agree with Arthur that CS needs grist for its mill, and
geometry and mathematics are good suppliers.
I would also turn that around and go with Scott's point that CS is not alone
in needing grist: geometry and mathematics benefit by having CS supply
context and applications.
For
Say, in the course of the manipulation of c its radius approaches
towards infinity, and upon the radius becoming than some Max, I want c
to suddenly think of itself as a Line instance rather than as a Circle
instance.
Footnote:
In Fuller's synergetic geometry, circles don't become
Trying to handle the sudden change of state of an instance of an object
- a quantum instance
c starts as a Circle instance.
Say, in the course of the manipulation of c its radius approaches
towards infinity, and upon the radius becoming than some Max, I want c
to suddenly think of itself as
Arthur wrote:
Trying to handle the sudden change of state of an instance of an object
- a quantum instance
c starts as a Circle instance.
Say, in the course of the manipulation of c its radius approaches
towards infinity, and upon the radius becoming than some Max, I want c
to
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