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In the Python version, you can mostly understand someone else’s code right off the bat, even as a mostly non-technical reader. The details (e.g. that list inde

In the Python version, you can mostly understand someone else’s code right off the bat, even as a mostly non-technical reader. The details (e.g. that list indexes and ranges start at 0 by default and are half-open) are consistent and predictable after just a tiny bit of experience.

naasking 7y ago
"Understanding" entails knowledge of the semantics. This means understanding the meaning of syntax, and the behaviour of the functions being called. This is true of both code fragments presented, so if you find one more intuitive than the other, that's your bias and not necessarily some objective feature of the syntax and semantics. Maybe most people share your bias, and so it could qualify as a reasonable definition of "intuitive for most humans", but there's little robust evidence of that.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  The first (and most important) level of “understanding” is understanding the intended meaning. Programming, like natural language, is a form of communication. The easier it is for someone to go from glancing at the code to understanding what it is intended to do, the more legible. I claim that it is easier to achieve this level of understanding in Python than most other programming languages. (And not just me: this has been found to be true in a handful of academic studies of novice programmers, and is a belief widely shared by many programming teachers.) Using words that the reader is already familiar with, sticking to a few simple patterns, and designing APIs which behave predictably and consistently makes communication much more fluent for non-experts. There are deeper levels of understanding, e.g. “have carefully examined the implementation of every subroutine and every bit of syntax used in the code snippet, and have meditated for decades on the subtleties of their semantics”, but while helpful in reading, writing, and debugging code, these are not the standard we should use for judging how legible it is.

naasking 7y ago

"Understanding" entails knowledge of the semantics. This means understanding the meaning of syntax, and the behaviour of the functions being called. This is true of both code fragments presented, so if you find one more intuitive than the other, that's your bias and not necessarily some objective feature of the syntax and semantics. Maybe most people share your bias, and so it could qualify as a reasonable definition of "intuitive for most humans", but there's little robust evidence of that.

jacobolus 7y ago
The first (and most important) level of “understanding” is understanding the intended meaning. Programming, like natural language, is a form of communication. The easier it is for someone to go from glancing at the code to understanding what it is intended to do, the more legible. I claim that it is easier to achieve this level of understanding in Python than most other programming languages. (And not just me: this has been found to be true in a handful of academic studies of novice programmers, and is a belief widely shared by many programming teachers.) Using words that the reader is already familiar with, sticking to a few simple patterns, and designing APIs which behave predictably and consistently makes communication much more fluent for non-experts. There are deeper levels of understanding, e.g. “have carefully examined the implementation of every subroutine and every bit of syntax used in the code snippet, and have meditated for decades on the subtleties of their semantics”, but while helpful in reading, writing, and debugging code, these are not the standard we should use for judging how legible it is.