allow line break at operators

[Ben Finney]

Seebs <usenet-nospam at seebs.net> writes:

> On 2011-08-10, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> > Seebs <usenet-nospam at seebs.net> writes:
> >> On 2011-08-10, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > And if we require {} then truly free indentation should be OK too!
> >> > But it wouldn't be Python any more.
>
> >> Would it really not be Python at all?
>
> > See the Python interpreter's response to ???from __future__ import braces???.
>
> I'm aware of that. I have seen all the counterarguments, and what I've
> mostly become convinced of is this:
>
> 1.  Indentation as flow control was a bad idea.
> 2.  People are subconsciously aware of this.

What evidence do you have of these? The latter, especially, seems to be
mere opinion unfounded in any measurement.

> 3.  There is a HUGE degree of emotional investment in defending it.

That same observation is consistent with:

* Indentation as block syntax is an excellent idea.
* Python programmers are quite consciously aware of this.

So I don't see a reason to prefer your inference over mine.

> The responses I have seen on this issue are highly emotional, full of
> insults, full of blame-throwing

Again, I don't know where you've been observing that, but it's not what
I've seen.

> I like Python a lot in some ways, but I am really sick of the
> insistance that this godawful wart is the sublime epitome of all
> perfection, never to be improved on. It was a really interesting
> experiment. As sometimes happens, the experiment discovered things
> that no one could have reasonably anticipated without running the
> experiment.

You're welcome to attempt to demonstrate the superiority of some other
Python-with-braces, but it will (a) be un-Pythonic, and (b) be unlikely
to gain the efforts of people who don't think what you're addressing is
a problem.

Since that latter set of people includes most Python programmers who
have reacted negatively to the proposal, you may want to re-think
whether your effort is worthwhile. Meanwhile, we'll continue being
productive with Python's indentation-as-structure.

-- 
 \         “If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all |
  `\    others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking |
_o__)              power called an idea” —Thomas Jefferson, 1813-08-13 |
Ben Finney