Guido's intuition (was Re: typetesting, adaptation, typeclasses, ...)

Tim Peters tim.one at home.com
Sat Feb 2 14:35:29 EST 2002


[Andrew Koenig]
> It seems to be universal among programmers that they get hung up about
> tiny syntax details until they get used to those details.  For example,
> C and C++ programmers still argue about where to put the curly braces
> in their programs.

That's because they don't have Guido to force them to do it the right way:

	if (guido) {
		tab(indent);
	}

If Guido had written the first C compiler, that's the only style it would
have accepted <0.5 wink>.

> At least Python doesn't have that particular problem...

Oddly enough, none of the Python developers argue about brace placement,
except for the occasional radical who sneaks in

	} else {
      }

instead of

	}
	else {
	}

The indentation of "case" wrt an enclosing "switch" is so hopeless nobody
even bothers to argue.

What the Python developers do get testy about is living with Guido's
seemingly inconsistent demand that Python code use 4-space indents with no
hard tabs, C code use 8-space hard-tab indents.  Oddly enough, the more
intelligent of us agree with him, but nobody can explain why <wink>.

to-call-it-a-matter-of-taste-would-be-too-forgiving-ly y'rs  - tim





More information about the Python-list mailing list