dictionary initialization

[Terry Reedy]

"Dan Perl" <danperl at rogers.com> wrote in message 
news:ufmdneh24KVgEjrcRVn-pw at rogers.com...
>
> "Caleb Hattingh" <caleb1 at telkomsa.net> wrote in message 
> news:opsh3pirx21js0xs at news.telkomsa.net...
>> IF this is the point you are making, and the awk functionality 
>> demostrated in this particular example is a really significant feature 
>> for you in your specific problem domain, then I must concede that awk is 
>> probably right for you, and you shouldn't waste your time with Python.
>
> And just like that, the discussion turned religious.  It's hard to assess 
> someone's tone when it comes in writing, but, Caleb, you sound sarcastic 
> and belligerent to me.

To me, Caleb was being only slightly and possibly sarcastic in the process 
of giving friendly good advice to the effect of "better to use Awk and 
produce than to beat you head against a wall trying to change a basic 
Python design decision.

Almost every design decision has plusses and minuses for designers and 
others to weigh.  No matter what the designer decides, there will be users 
who weigh the factors enough differently to really wish that the decision 
was otherwise.  In fact, there will probably be another language whose 
designer did decide otherwise.  And in this case, with regard to the 
handling of uninitialized variables, there is.

A Python religion fanatic might have made the opposite suggestion --  
something like 'your factor weighting is wrong; see the light and bow to 
the superior wisdom of how Python does it'.

Terry J. Reedy