Why Python does *SLICING* the way it does??

[Rocco Moretti]

Steve Holden wrote:
> The principle of least surprise is all very well, but "needless surprise 
> of newbies" is a dangerous criterion to adopt for programming language 
> design and following it consistently would lead to a mess like Visual 
> Basic, which grew by accretion until Microsoft realized it was no longer 
> tenable and broke backward compatibility.

Well, *needless* surprise of newbies is never a good thing. If it were, 
it wouldn't be needless, now would it? :-) Surprising newbies just to 
surprise newbies is just cruel, but there is room in this world for "it 
may suprise you now, but you'll thank us later" and situations where 
there is a "newbie way" and an "other way", and the "other" way is 
chosen because it's the easiest thing for the most people in the long run.

But I agree, having "the easiest thing for newbies" as your sole 
criterion for language design is a road to madness, for no other reason 
than that newbies don't stay newbies forever.