Why we will use obj$func() often

Mike C. Fletcher mcfletch at rogers.com
Fri Apr 23 04:57:53 EDT 2004


Mark Hahn wrote:

>Mike C. Fletcher wrote:
>  
>
...

>Internally in the interpreter I have the full Python super function almost
>exactly.  It's no coincidence.  You need that to make inheritance work.  I
>can bring it out for the Prothon user, but I originally designed prothon
>with keywords and symbols, not functions, something I'm taking a lot of heat
>for now.
>  
>
Heat is a good way to bake ideas and remove impurities.

>You've stretched my "one more thing to pitch" statement to the extreme
>statement of "switch to this because of this one thing".   Of course one
>isn't going to care about one thing.
>  
>
Well, as I said, if you're going to have fun trolling I get to have fun 
trolling back ;) .  Basically, I'm saying this particular detail is not 
an argument worth making on its own.  The argument is going to be "it's 
a clean, simple, balanced and elegant syntax" and this level of detail 
is just part of that picture.  Artwork is judged as a whole, and one 
might critique a particular facet if it's horrible, but perfection is 
assumed otherwise.

>You may very well be right.  
>
Never happened before, why assume it'd start now :) .

>My biggest problem right now is stupid aesthetics.  I have to decide where
>to place Prothon on the continuum between lisp and perl.  
>
*poke* surely you see the humour that a Python user will derive from 
that statement :) ;) .

>When I crossed the
>line and added $ for self people screamed bloody murder that it looked like
>Perl.  Before when I had a period for self they thought it looked great.  I
>can't believe how much they care about something so silly.
>  
>
Comparatively, instance-attribute access is used three or four times a 
minute when coding, while super is used once or twice a month for 
non-framework-programmers, so yes, I can see someone screaming bloody 
murder if they suddenly are looking at a screen full of $This and $that 
variables.  $ is basically a character as far as glyphs go, it's a 
full-height glyph with ascenders and descenders, is very similar to a 
capital S, and generally makes reading code much harder as it obscures 
word-shape; .this or even self.this is much easier to read because you 
can pick out the words using your learned vocabulary of word-shapes.

    Readability counts

BTW, I'm a professional designer, so "stupid aesthetics" are what I care 
about whenever I get a chance ;) .

>Anyway, thanks very much for your input.  I'm sorry if you wore out your
>keyboard.  Luckily the prices have really come down :)
>  
>
Unfortunately, MS doesn't make the classic Natural Keyboard any more 
(they just make that darned Natural Elite and the 
egads-it's-covered-in-pointless-extra-buttons USB Natural), so I have to 
savour every keystroke ;) .

That's why I never post to newsgroups,
Mike

_______________________________________
  Mike C. Fletcher
  Designer, VR Plumber, Coder
  http://members.rogers.com/mcfletch/






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