Alien whitespace eating nanovirus strikes again!

[Daniel Faulkner]

How many messages are there about this white space stuff? Looks like millions whats
it all about?

Martijn Faassen wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> I don't intend to start a flamewar or anything, and I'm sure Larry Wall
> is a nice guy, and Perl is nice and all, and the postmodern
> rationalisation of the confusion that Perl is to me is *fun* (but does
> not work for me), but Larry Wall seems to be infected by the whitespace
> eating nanovirus meme. From an interview at:
>
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue61/3394.html
>
> Interviewer:  In what way is Perl better than other scripting languages
> such as Python and Eiffel?
>
> [Eiffel a 'scripting language'? hm]
>
> [Larry Wall:]
> [Perl is postmodern]
> > That is, if something's worth doing, it's worth driving into the ground to the
> > exclusion of all other approaches. Look at the use of parentheses in Lisp or
> > the use of white space as syntax in Python. Or the mandatory use of objects in
> > many languages, including Java. All of these are ways of taking freedom away
> > from the end user ``for their own good''. They're just versions of Orwell's
> > Newspeak, in which it's impossible to think bad thoughts. We escaped from the
> > fashion police in the 1970s, but many programmers are still slaves of the cyber
> > police.
> [Perl is postmodern and therefore allows freedom]
>
> One could say the same about Perl and it requiring it curly braces
> around blocks? In fact, I heard the claim that its requirement to use
> curly braces around single line blocks (unlike C which allows you to
> remove them) makes Perl less prone to errors. And Perl excludes the use
> of meaningful whitespace indentation! (python does allow #{ and #}
> blocks ;)
>
> Okay, I *will* say the same about Perl and its curly braces requirement:
>
> } That is, if something's worth doing, it's worth driving into the
> ground to the
> } exclusion of all other approaches. Look at the use of curly braces in
> } Perl.
>
> *any* language makes it impossible to code in some ways, and encourages
> other coding styles, Perl included. Python, for instance, allows
> procedural and object oriented coding styles; and people keep trying for
> functional styles as well. We've even started using 'assembler style' by
> manipulating Python bytecodes! Silly, silly, whitespace meme.
>
> People think bad thoughts in Python all the time (see the 'evil hacks'
> threads showing up regularly). It's just that we have the sense to
> recognize the bad thoughts for what they are. I suppose that's why
> 'advisory locking' of member data is good enough for Python. :)
>
> Okay, sorry for all this, it's out of line, I just needed to blow off
> steam. :)
>
> Regards,
>
> Martijn