Matlab vs Python (was RE: Discussion: Introducing new operators for matrix computation)

[Moshe Zadka]

On Mon, 17 Jul 2000, Huaiyu Zhu wrote:

> Consider the proposal of having two classes, Matrixwise and Elementwise,
> with methods to cast to each other.  I don't know why
> 
> (a.E()*b.E()).M()*(c.E()*d.E()).M()
> 
> would be more preferable to 
> 
> (a.*b)*(c.*d)

For the same reason

import sys, re

r = re.compile("a(.*)z")
while 1:
	line = sys.stdin.readline()
	if not line:
		break
	m = r.search(line)
	if m:
		print m.group(1)

To:
while(<STDIN>) {
	print $1 . "\n" if /a(.*)z/;
}

It's more verbose, and people are able to understand it without learning
weird corners of the language. (BTW: as a former Perl hacker, I find the
Perl code *extremely* readable, and I spend more time understanding the
Python code. But that doesn't change the fact that Perl took me longer to
master then Python, and even then I didn't really understand Perl. For
example, could I lose the ";" in the Perl code? I think so, but I'm not
sure)

--
Moshe Zadka <moshez at math.huji.ac.il>
There is no GOD but Python, and HTTP is its prophet.
http://advogato.org/person/moshez