Advice from Jeff (Was Re: Is there "let binding" in Python?)

[Martin Maney]

Don Bruder <dakidd at sonic.net> wrote:
> Definitely declaring variables. I'm nowhere near far enough along to 
> mess with templates yet. They just confuse me.

Templates seem to me (now - I still remember a time when they appeared
almost magical) a workaround for premature typing in C++.  Reminds me
of Strachey's comments on IBM's Stretch computer: "Like some early
computer programs it is immensely ingenious, immensely complicated, and
extremely effective, but somehow at the same time crude, wasteful, and
inelegant, and one feels that there must be a better way of doing
things." Python, in comparison, seems to me to be an intelligent way of
employing the modern CPU.  :-)

-- 
automation: replacing what works with something that almost works,
but which is faster and cheaper.  - attributed to Roger Needham