Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

[Dave Benjamin]

In article <donn-9E699D.10085714102003 at nntp1.u.washington.edu>, Donn Cave wrote:
>
> ...to contradict me I don't recall it.  I think there is some
> perverse thriftiness in most of us that makes us want to economise
> on a carriage return here a name there, until our code becomes
> so distilled that it's too perfect - too hard to understand.
> Python is not about this kind of perfection, in my opinion.

True, but there are other reasons for anonymity besides the conservation of
character count (heh). Sometimes, you just don't know if something needs to
be reusable. Maybe YAGNI. For me, I typically go through an exploratory
phase when writing a new module where I don't name a lot of things, don't
create a lot of objects, and just try to solve a problem. I find that the
ability to toss around "thunks" helps me find a solution through
experimentation. Once the code is solid, I lift anonymous functions and
extract methods and classes where access patterns dictate the ability to
reuse and eliminate redundancy. At this point, I actually see the solution,
so I don't have to anticipate what sort of structure I'm going to need.

This is just one manner of solving problems, of course. However, it happens
to work particularly well (for me) in new domains which I lack the
experience necessary to work out a good structure in advance. With every
named object in a program comes the implicit assumption that the object will
later need to be called for by name. This goes for functions, classes, and
temporary variables.

I'm not trying to jump into the fire here, but I just wanted to illustrate
how anonynimity might be about imperfection, too. After all, you can always
repent^H^H^H^Hfactor later. =)

Peace,
Dave

-- 
.:[ dave benjamin (ramenboy) -:- www.ramenfest.com -:- www.3dex.com ]:.
: d r i n k i n g   l i f e   o u t   o f   t h e   c o n t a i n e r :