[Doc-SIG] readability of sample programs in tutorial

[Xuan Wu]

Hi Steve,

actually I suspected the same at the first sight, but after realizing 
"Guido" is the creator, I dug the python source code history and found 
out he actually drafted this sample himself around 1991. Then I found in 
his resume that:

 > From 1986 till 1991 I was with the Amoeba project, headed by Sape 
Mullender

Sape's phone back then at CWI was |+20-592 4139. |
After that I found another colleague of them is Jack Jansen, with phone 
20 592 4098
And 20-592-4127 might be a shared phone number, as it was listed as 
overall contact number in some of CWI's publications, so likely Guido 
and Irv (not sure who that refers to, which bothers me a bit still, but 
I can live with it) both used that at some time, which is also shown in 
the sample program.

So, 'tel' seems to be a sample telephone book of CWI, with only the last 
4 digits.

The program's meaning becomes obvious only after all this history study. 
It was fun for sure, but IMO most readers won't go that far, as I didn't 
find any of such explanations online so far.

Best,
Xuan.

On 5/11/18 9:40 AM, Xuan Wu wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> when reading some of the sample codes in the official tutorial, I had 
> to do research to understand the background of naming and string 
> constants, like those strings from the script of Monty Python. Still 
> this one in $5.5 is the most challenging so far:
>
> >>>tel  =  {'jack':  4098,  'sape':  4139}
> >>>tel['guido']  =  4127
> >>>tel
> {'sape': 4139, 'guido': 4127, 'jack': 4098}
> >>>tel['jack']
> 4098 ...
>
> I did quite some digging to confirm my guess of the hidden meaning, 
> during which I realized it was initially written 27 years ago, without 
> much change so far. Now I'm curious if its meaning is obvious to most 
> nowadays beginners even as English speakers.
>
> In general, I wonder if there was discussion of revising some sample 
> programs for better readability or adding more comments/introductory 
> texts?
>
> Thanks.
>

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