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Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 08:01:38 +1000
Subject: Re: Why did Quora choose Python for its development?
From: Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
To: python-list@python.org
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On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 3:39 AM, D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@druid.net> wrote:
> My point was that even proponents of the language can make a
> significant error based on the way the variable is named. =A0It's like
> the old Fortran IV that I first learned where the name of the variable
> determined whether it was an integer or a floating point.

I believe that's the origin of one of the proofs that God is real
(unless declared integer). And hey, I can't hate something that gave
us the classic use of i, j, k as loop indices!

> One of my favorite quotes (not sure if it was about Perl or APL) is "I
> refuse to use a programming language where the proponents of it stick
> snippets under each other's nose and say 'I bet you can't guess what
> this does.'"

Yes, I believe that was Perl. And an amusing quote. But most of the
point of it comes from the fact that Perl uses punctuation for most of
its keywords, whereas (say) Python uses English words; it's a lot more
fun to crunch something down when you can use $| and friends than when
you have to put "x and y", complete with spaces, for a simple boolean.
But that says nothing about which language is actually better for
working with... beyond the fact that Perl can get more mileage out of
an 80-character line!

> When I first looked at Perl it looked like line noise. =A0When I first
> looked at Python it looked like pseudo-code.

When I first looked at assembly language it looked like random junk
left behind in memory. When I first looked at COBOL it looked like ...
COBOL. Doesn't make either of them better or worse.

Pseudo-code is not a viable language for a computer to parse, but it's
a good language for scribbling down comments in. That doesn't
necessarily mean that a programming language that's "closer to"
pseudo-code is good. And verbosity doesn't necessarily equate to
quality; for instance, when I'm working in both Python and PHP, I find
it FAR tidier to use Python's {1:2,3:4] notation than PHP's
array(1=3D>2,3=3D>4) - but on the flip side, I would prefer to have
program structure defined by keywords like "if" and "while" than
obscure random line noise. (Fortunately, most sane languages do indeed
use keywords there.)

Chris Angelico