Language change and code breaks

Martijn Faassen m.faassen at vet.uu.nl
Mon Jul 23 15:25:08 EDT 2001


Michael Chermside <mcherm at destiny.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Don't encourage sloppy habits: require case sensitivity.

Right, the case-(in)sensitivity issues are very similar to the
indentation issues. Python enforces the way code looks by making
indentation required (and the only thing); we get consistently 
indented code that way. I believe that is good.

Python currently also enforces consistently case-spelled code. I
believe that this is good as well.

People sometimes counter this by using the 'bondage and discipline' 
argument, but I believe some consistency actually doesn't hurt on
this level; it's not a major hoop through jump through. Bondage and discipline
can hurt on the (surface) semantic level, where it makes it much easier
to code oneself into a corner.

So, I believe we should encourage "there should be one obvious way to do it"
on the syntactic level here. Frequently having more than one way to do it
on the semantic level is however a good thing if that means increased
flexibility.

Regards,

Martijn
-- 
History of the 20th Century: WW1, WW2, WW3?
No, WWW -- Could we be going in the right direction?



More information about the Python-list mailing list