Python Rocks! - get rid of colons

[Tim Peters]

[Tim]
>  ... the connection between colons and blocks was adopted
> from Python's closest predecessor, ABC.  Formal usability
> studies [blah blah blah]

[Will Rose]
> Cool.  But if Python is designed for newbies,

ABC was designed for newbies.  Python != ABC.  Although his work on the ABC
implementation team clearly had strong influence on Guido's philosophy, the
languages are very different.

> does that mean we all have to give up using it after a month
> (or three months, in my case) when we actually have some
> experience with it?
>
> There's certainly a niche for learning languages: but is that
> really where Python is headed?  From the libraries and tools
> available, I hadn't thought so.

Me neither, although I reject the assumption that a language good for
learning is necessarily bad for "real life"; to the contrary, I think Python
already stands as a strong counterexample (although ABC does not).  Guido's
CP4E proposal

    http://www.python.org/doc/essays/cp4e.html

is definitely aimed at newbies, but is much more concerned with the
development environment than with the language per se.  There are several
reasons to suspect that a few aspects of Python today are "plain wrong" for
newbies (case sensitivity and "lossy" integer division get mentioned most
often) -- but many experienced programmers gripe about the same things.

Unfortunately, "experienced programmers" are all over the map, usually
griping about whatever doesn't match the last language they used <0.4 wink>.

e.g.-you're-probably-irked-about-indentation<2.0-wink>-ly
    y'rs  - tim