[Python-ideas] Fwd: unpacking generalisations for list comprehension

[David Mertz]

Exactly with Paul!

As I mentioned, I teach software developers and scientists Python for a
living.  I get paid a lot of money to do that, and have a good sense of
what learners can easily understand and not (I've also written hundred of
articles and a few books about Python).  The people I write for and teach
are educated, smart, and generally have familiarity with multiple
programming languages.

In my opinion, this new construct—if added to the language—would be
difficult to teach, and most of my students would get it wrong most of the
time.

Yes, I understand the proposed semantics.  It is not *intuitive* to me, but
I could file the rule about the behavior if I had to.  But if I were forced
to teach it, it would always be "Here's a Python wart to look out for if
you see it in other code... you should not ever use it yourself."

On Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 8:18 AM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 13 October 2016 at 15:32, Sven R. Kunze <srkunze at mail.de> wrote:
> > Steven, please. You seemed to struggle to understand the notion of the
> > [*....] construct and many people (not just me) here tried their best to
> > explain their intuition to you.
>
> And yet, the fact that it's hard to explain your intuition to others
> (Steven is not the only one who's finding this hard to follow) surely
> implies that it's merely that - personal intuition - and not universal
> understanding.
>
> The *whole point* here is that not everyone understands the proposed
> notation the way the proposers do, and it's *hard to explain* to those
> people. Blaming the people who don't understand does not support the
> position that this notation should be added to the language. Rather,
> it reinforces the idea that the new proposal is hard to teach (and
> consequently, it may be a bad idea for Python).
>
> Paul
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