Python's simplicity philosophy

[Donn Cave]

Quoth Ville Vainio <ville.spammehardvainio at spamtut.fi>:
...
| I was merely arguing that 'reduce' is not more readable or intuitive
| than 'sum', which was the argument of OP. 

My point is that readability and intuition depend on acquired
experience.  Your non-programmer girlfriend lacks enough experience
to be able to understand all kinds of stuff in Python, so she's not
a useful gauge, because at that level you can't use Python anyway.
It isn't that simple, and I don't think there really is any good
evidence for what is readable.  We could talk about why someone might
think reduce is about readability, but it can only be speculation.

| I wouldn't mind Python getting more influence from functional realm,
| as Python seems to me to be *the* hybrid language that can pull the FP
| thing while still remaining practical and intuitive (and delightfully
| non-academic).

Python may be a hybrid, but certainly none of its parents were FPLs.
Trying to make it one gives both Python and FP a bad name.  If you
want a language that really supports both functional and procedural 
styles, I think you need Lisp.  Look at Dylan, I haven't tried it but
it may be quite a bit more comfortable for Python and C programmers.

	Donn Cave, donn at drizzle.com