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Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 08:45:30 +1100
Subject: Re: Python is readable
From: Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:22399

On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 7:58 AM, Nathan Rice
<nathan.alexander.rice@gmail.com> wrote:
> Programming
> language designers purposefully try to make their language C-like,
> because not being C-like disqualifies a language from consideration
> for a HUGE portion of programmers, who cower at the naked feeling they
> get imagining a world without curly braces. =A0Fear of change and the
> unknown are brutal, and humans are cowardly creatures that will grasp
> at whatever excuses they can find not to acknowledge their weaknesses.

Braces are clear delimiters. English doesn't have them, and suffers
for it. (Python's indentation is, too, but English doesn't have that
either.) It's a lot harder to mark the end of an "if" block in English
than in pretty much any programming language.

And be careful of what has to be given up to gain your conveniences.
I've used languages that demand variable declarations and ones that
don't, and I'm very much a fan of the former. There are many benefits
to being explicit about that.

ChrisA