Why "flat is better than nested"?

[kj]

In <mailman.241.1288036400.2218.python-list at python.org> Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> writes:

>On 10/25/2010 3:11 PM, kj wrote:

>> Well, it's pretty *enshrined*, wouldn't you say?

>No.

> >  After all, it is part of the standard distribution,

>So is 'import antigravity'

Are you playing with my feelings?

% python
Python 2.6.1 (r261:67515, Feb 11 2010, 00:51:29) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] on darwin
>>> import antigravity
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named antigravity

Too bad, I was looking forward to that.

> > has an easy-to-remember invocation,
>> etc.  *Someone* must have taken it seriously enough to go through
>> all this bother.  If it is as trivial as you suggest (and for all
>> I know you're absolutely right), then let's knock it off its pedestal
>> once and for all, and remove it from the standard distribution.

>If you are being serious, you are being too serious (as in humorless).

Guilty as charged, both in the "too serious" and the "humorless"
counts. :/  Blame it on the Asperger's.

My only defense is that, while learning Python over the past year,
I've had *many* "you've got to be joking" moments while reading
what's ostensible "serious" Python documents (e.g. PEP 8, PEP 257)
as well as assorted threads featuring GvR and others involved in
the design of Python, to the point that sometimes I do have a hard
time gauging the seriousness of what's considered "good programming"
/ "best practice" in the Python world.

Plus, I think it's fair to say that the Python community as a whole
(or at least its more vocal members) are more concerned with
"correctness" (for lack of a better term) and "code aesthetics"
than, say, the Perl community.  E.g., only in Python-related threads
I've seen the adjective "icky" used routinely to indicate that some
code is unacceptable on (more or less) aesthetic grounds.

My point is that, even if one detects some levity in ZoP, given
everything else one runs into in the Python world, for the uninitiated
like me it is still hard to distinguish between what's in jest and
what's in earnest.

Perhaps the disconnect here is that you're seeing the whole thing
from an insider's point of view, while I'm still enough of an
outsider not to share this point of view.  (I happen to think that
one the hallmarks of being an initiate to a discipline is an almost
complete loss of any memory of what that discipline looked like
when the person was a complete novice.  If this is true, then it's
easy to understand the difference in our perceptions.)

Anyway, thanks for letting me in on the joke.  I'll pass it on.

(Though, humorless as it is of me, I still would prefer the ZoP
out of the standard library, to save myself having to tell those
who are even newer to Python than me not to take it seriously.)

~kj