why tar is strange

[Grant Griffin]

Martijn Faassen wrote:
> 
> Grant Griffin <g2 at seebelow.org> wrote:
> [snip]
> > *Having recently learned Python's syntax, I have now graduated to the
> > more challenging stage of my Python journey, the
> > learning-how-to-string-the-gadgets-together-effectively part.  If my
> > experience with other programming languages holds true, this will take
> > maybe a year.
> 
> A *year*? And you have experience with other programming languages? If
> you have OO experience, learning Python shouldn't take more than a
> month, and that's long. That's not to say you know _all_ the nice
> idioms that Python has by then, and that's not to say someone with a
> year of Python experience won't be likely to be better, but you'll
> be pretty darn effective after a month, I'd say.
> 
> This-is-NOT-C++-ly yours,
> 
> Martijn

Well, lemme give you an example.  I figured out the other day that the
way to do sscanf was:

   map(float, string.split(s))    # (IIRC)

Well, obviously!

Besides map, Python has lots of built-in functions emboding concepts
which aren't familiar to me as an experienced C/C++ programmer, for
example:  map, reduce, lambda, filter, etc.  Sure, one can RTFM about
these.  But learning the "what" is just the beginning: learning the
"why" and the "when" is what takes a lot of practice.  (Anytime someone
says "the Pythonic way to do that would be...", they're talking about
what I'll be learning over about the next year or so.)

Oh, and did I mention the libraries?  More study and practice is
required here.  Whatever their intrinsic merits, Python's libraries are
at least significantly different from the libraries of other languages
(which are likewise different from each other.)

the-simplest-systems-are-the-hardest-to-master-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com