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Re: the best online course

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in 762282 20160711 063300 Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
>On Monday 11 July 2016 13:07, Rustom Mody wrote:
>
>> Python is good for black-box – us the ‘batteries included’ without worrying
>> too much how they are made
>> Scheme, assembly language, Turing machines etc are at the other end of the
>> spectrum
>
>I would put it the other way.
>
>Python is excellent for "white boxes", because the syntax is extremely
>approachable, easy to read and comprehend. (Although you may wish to avoid some
>of the more complicated and hairy features if your emphasis is on learning.)
>It's famous for being "executable pseudo-code" and neither too concise nor too
>verbose, and lacks the syntactic cruft which can impede understanding (braces,
>type declarations), which makes it excellent for teaching about algorithms,
>etc. But for some tasks, at least, it may lack speed and efficiency to be a
>practical "black box".
>
>Scheme, assembly, C, Forth etc are excellent for black boxes, as they are
>extremely efficient languages, but not so approachable, readable and
>comprehensible.
>
>Turing machines are to be avoided except for academic proofs that a certain
>feature or language is equivalent to a Turing machine, in which case we know
>precisely how much power it has, computation-wise. Turing machines are neither
>efficient enough to be used as black boxes, nor comprehensible enough to be
>used for white boxes.
>
>Take Python's StringIO class. Would you rather *read* the Python version or the
>C version? Which would you rather *use*?

The Rexx version  :-))

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the best online course nickpetros32@gmail.com - 2016-07-06 12:28 -0700
  Re: the best online course Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-07-07 07:04 +1000
    Re: the best online course Malik Rumi <malik.a.rumi@gmail.com> - 2016-07-09 14:37 -0700
      Re: the best online course Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-07-10 07:57 +1000
      Re: the best online course Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2016-07-09 16:09 -0700
      Re: the best online course Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-07-10 09:21 +1000
      Re: the best online course Bob Martin <bob.martin@excite.com> - 2016-07-10 08:18 +0100
        Re: the best online course Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2016-07-10 10:06 -0700
          Re: the best online course Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-07-10 20:07 -0700
            Re: the best online course Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2016-07-11 15:33 +1000
              Re: the best online course Bob Martin <bob.martin@excite.com> - 2016-07-11 07:05 +0100
              Re: the best online course Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-07-10 23:40 -0700
      Re: the best online course Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2016-07-10 21:29 -0700
  Re: the best online course Jay Thompson <jayryan.thompson@gmail.com> - 2016-07-06 14:11 -0700
  Re: the best online course Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> - 2016-07-06 17:50 -0700
    Re: the best online course Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2016-07-06 21:07 -0600
      Re: the best online course Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-07-07 23:34 -0700

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