PEP0238 lament

[Stephen Horne]

On Mon, 23 Jul 2001 19:27:50 -0400, "Tim Peters" <tim at digicool.com>
wrote:

>[Paul Prescod]
>> This issue is constantly presented as some sort of dichotomy between
>> "regular" programmers" and newbies. But really it is more of a
>> dichotomy between those originally trained on typed languages and
>> those on dynamically typed languages.
>
>Excellent point, Paul!  The newbies get dumped on because they're the only
>ones impudent enough to complain about it -- Guido hasn't crushed their
>spirits yet <wink>.

The only issue with newbies is whether or not we provide crutches to
save them from needing to learn fundamental programming issues.
Newbies are going to need to ask questions - that is an essential part
of how learning works and should not be seen as some horrible shock.
There will be many common questions, for which a FAQ and some patience
and tolerance are the logical solutions. A faster learning curve is
undeniably great, but pretending there's nothing to learn is not the
same thing.

Some time, the difference between integers and floats is going to make
itself felt - letting people learn and extensively reinforce bad
habits before explaining that is an example of what's known as falling
into a comfort zone - it is *not* a positive gain. To quote a very
tired saying, a stitch in time saves nine.