A modest indentation proposal

[Chris Barker]

I know I said I had posted my last post on this thread, but I can't help
myself:

I if get this straight, you seem to think that the indentation issue is
the ONLY thing getting in the way of NASA adopting Python. The only
"show stopper" at any rate. I really, really doubt that. This may be
stopping the show at the moment, but if it were resolved, it is very
likely that other "nits" would show up.

Anyway, you seem to be suggesting that the entire Python community
should rise up and support the addition of a feature that very few
people in the Python community think is even remotely useful. (granted
it would be optional, but it's pretty clear that the Python community
does not want a few dozen (or more) dialects of the language around
either). The only reason we should support this feature is because it
MIGHT be just the thing needed to get NASA to start using the language.
While I'm sure most of us on this list would like to see Python gain
more users, if we started to add one feature for each substantial
organization that wants one, we would get one hell of a mess of a
language, that no one would want to use (or two dozen dialects...same
result) If NASA is so hung up on block delimiters that it NEEDS them,
NASA should create NASAPython, and add them. Problem solved. (or use
Ruby, it looks pretty nice, and has block delimiters)

By the way, did you suggest to the LISP community that LISP should
optionally use something other than all those parentheses? That seems to
be the main unimportant stumbling block when people used to C/C++
consider LISP.

What we have provided for you here is an exceptionally civil discussion
filled with lots of good arguments why indentation based block
delimiting is at worst harmless, and at best safer and more robust than
C/C++ style brackets. Summarize this discussion, and use it in your
arguments.

By the way, to an organization that is considering adopting a new
language, I would think that the fact that the language is NOT likely to
change with every new request would be a good thing! MAybe we are all
just being tested? ;-)


-Chris








-- 
Christopher Barker,
Ph.D.                                                           
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