why python annoys me

[Martin von Loewis]

Luke <floods at netplus.net> writes:

> Why should you have to name stuff with __*__ to get some pseudo hiding?
> Or for any reason for that matter...

I agree, that __ stuff is far too magic.,

> 
> Why do you always have to access class data members as self.* What a
> pain in the ass, and anti-OO.

I disagree. In Smalltalk, which is one of the oldest OO languages, the
object being dealt with is always referred-to as "self". Even in a
natural language, the actor always refers to the subject of an action,
even if the subject is the actor ("I understand this", not "Understand
this").

> In a Java class, you don't constantly have to write this.feature =
> this.feature2 ++; if this.a > this.b etc...

Yes, and this can be quite confusing when you read other people's
code.

> Is it procedural or OO?  Some of the std lib seems to think it is OO,
> and the other half seems to think it is procedural...

It is both, and I agree with others that it is a good thing. Some of
Java's API really suffers from having to put everything into a class
(look at java.lang.math for an example).

> Furthermore, the syntax and features of the language keep changing with
> every release.  For God's sake!  I regret ever buying programming python
> and learning python... I feel like they're already out of date.

The library changes, true. For the language changes: what you find in
your book is still good today.

Regards,
Martin