Implicit initialization is EXCELLENT

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 11:53 AM, rantingrick <rantingrick at gmail.com> wrote:
> So you would start drivers education class with road construction? Or
> the history of the internal combustion engine? Who cares about
> actually *driving* the car.
>

I believe that starting driver ed with some basics of how an internal
combustion engine works would be a Good Thing. If you're going to be
in control of a ton of steel that's capable of moving at a hundred
kays, you ought to know at least a bit about what provides the kinetic
energy.

There's a difference between comprehension and jumping through hoops.
In your driver ed example, I don't believe that the accelerator pedal
should be replaced with a flexible fuel-line that the driver squeezes
to control flow to the engine; but on the other hand, I don't think
the brake pedal should be replaced by a single button saying "stop
car" either.

Arrogance is a normal part of designing programming languages (see
Larry Wall's comments regarding Perl, for instance). But arrogance to
the extent of forcing your views on programmers is generally resented,
and with good reason. If you force too much on people, they'll go
elsewhere.

ChrisA