Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!not-for-mail From: Ben Finney Newsgroups: comp.lang.python Subject: Ohnoes significant whitespace (was: Considering migrating to Python from Visual Basic 6 for engineering applications) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2016 12:03:24 +1100 Lines: 30 Message-ID: References: <90cc50d2-1ce5-4588-9bfd-a49d439f00dd@googlegroups.com> <14c75a68-0d2e-45cc-8d73-0d71b6a6aea6@googlegroups.com> <56c66225$0$1607$c3e8da3$5496439d@news.astraweb.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de SQ7lgQZCn/1WYwi1ZwweWArXjItuhpHP7tHN0EAqzRCg== Cancel-Lock: sha1:9pQ6FksBV1l7VtG3y2i1kv2WkvA= Return-Path: X-Original-To: python-list@python.org Delivered-To: python-list@mail.python.org X-Spam-Status: OK 0.034 X-Spam-Evidence: '*H*': 0.93; '*S*': 0.00; 'subject:Python': 0.05; 'badly': 0.07; 'received:80.91': 0.09; 'received:80.91.229': 0.09; 'received:gmane.org': 0.09; 'received:list': 0.09; 'subject:Visual': 0.09; 'python': 0.10; '(other': 0.16; '*before*': 0.16; 'headaches': 0.16; 'received:80.91.229.3': 0.16; 'received:io': 0.16; 'received:plane.gmane.org': 0.16; 'received:psf.io': 0.16; 'shell': 0.18; 'language': 0.19; 'people,': 0.20; 'fix': 0.21; 'programming': 0.22; 'leave': 0.23; 'tried': 0.24; 'unix': 0.24; 'header:User-Agent:1': 0.26; 'header:X-Complaints-To:1': 0.26; 'chris': 0.26; 'errors.': 0.27; 'complain': 0.29; 'whitespace': 0.29; "i'm": 0.30; 'probably': 0.31; "can't": 0.32; 'legacy': 0.33; 'languages': 0.34; 'that,': 0.34; 'trouble': 0.35; 'community': 0.36; 'should': 0.36; 'there': 0.36; '(and': 0.36; 'to:addr:python-list': 0.36; 'subject:: ': 0.37; 'being': 0.37; 'received:org': 0.37; 'does': 0.39; 'subject:from': 0.39; 'to:addr:python.org': 0.40; 'some': 0.40; 'ever': 0.60; 'claim': 0.61; 'matter': 0.63; 'needing': 0.63; 'different': 0.63; 'you.': 0.64; 'cut': 0.67; 'talking': 0.67; 'price': 0.69; '8bit%:21': 0.70; 'skip:\xe2 10': 0.70; '_o__)': 0.84; 'received:125': 0.84; 'bags': 0.91; 'horror': 0.91; 'notion': 0.91; 'thoughts,': 0.91; 'reducing': 0.93 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: jigong.madmonks.org X-Public-Key-ID: 0xAC128405 X-Public-Key-Fingerprint: 517C F14B B2F3 98B0 CB35 4855 B8B2 4C06 AC12 8405 X-Public-Key-URL: http://www.benfinney.id.au/contact/bfinney-pubkey.asc X-Post-From: Ben Finney User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4 (gnu/linux) X-BeenThere: python-list@python.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21rc2 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion list for the Python programming language List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:103160 Chris Angelico writes: > I'm talking about how people, those bags of flesh and thoughts, are > bugged out by the notion that *whitespace* should matter (other than > the mere presence/absence of it). It's the price you pay for being > different - people will have trouble comprehending you. To be fair, there is good reason for the programming (and broader IT) community to have a heuristic of “significant whitespace is probably bad”. The few languages that did this badly (Makefile syntax, some Unix shell syntax) leave a legacy of countless headaches and you can't fix the language retroactively without breaking backward compatibility. So I am sympathetic to Python newcomers recoiling in horror from significant whitespace, *before* they try it. And because of that, we are burdened with forever needing to deal with that reaction and soothing it. Those people who claim to have tried Python and *still* complain about “significant whitespace”, I have no sympathy for. Python clearly does it right, and it's a huge boon to readability and reducing simple errors. -- \ “He was the mildest-mannered man / That ever scuttled ship or | `\ cut a throat.” —“Lord” George Gordon Noel Byron, _Don Juan_ | _o__) | Ben Finney