Hi Danny!
Preliminary remark: I know that "beautiful" and "beauty" are concepts very seldom applied to computer programs or programming languages. I suppose mainly because they are to a large extent a matter of taste ...
Hi Gregor and all,
Though I've not had the time to follow the details of the thread closely, it's stored for future perusal -- I'm really glad you started it, Gregor.
But, your comment above caught my eye. import this to see that beauty is embraced by the zen :-)
It's been a long day, so I don't feel I am saying this well, but:
When not trying to learn Python, I'm a (grad student) philosopher of logic and mathematics. I've thought some about beauty in proof, and hope to think seriously about it one day. Beauty in maths is like what the judge said about pornography -- "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it." I've never met a philosopher or a mathematician who could give a compelling (and robust) account of what makes for beauty, but there is widespread convergence of judgements about which proofs are beautiful and which ugly. (This even though taste does enter into it, too.)
I think the same is true of (at least academic) computer science. The comp sci people I know at my uni all work in automated-theorem proving, and I know they use their perceptions of beauty as a design guide. And, with my much more limited experience with programming, my judgements that "this code is ugly" have been pretty reliable in identifying the problematic parts. "If it is beautiful, it might be right. If it is ugly, it is likely wrong" seems a safe claim.
Anyway, all this is to say that I think that what you "know" above is wrong :-)
<SNIP>
post scriptum: as always when writing not only about technical facts but about opinions and values in English, I'm a bit axious if I was able to express correctly what I wanted to say. Hmmm. Hope that I didn't create any misunderstandings ....
Ich kann Deutsch, aber nur ein bischen. I think I'd be a very happy fellow if my German were half as good as your English :-)
Best to all,
Brian vdB
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