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I thought Pascal was weird, but that's because I learned BASIC first. I thought C was weird but that's because I learned Pascal before. There happen to be a h

I thought Pascal was weird, but that's because I learned BASIC first. I thought C was weird but that's because I learned Pascal before. There happen to be a handful of popular languages that are C-like in scope syntax, but it is important to get beyond the first thing you happened to learn. It is like only eating the cuisine from the country where you were born.

jclulow 6y ago
I learnt BASIC when I was young, and then (Borland Turbo)Pascal after that, and C family languages (including C and Java and such) after that. Then I learnt Python, and even wrote a lot of it at Uni and for various jobs -- enough that I'm pretty firm in my distaste for significant whitespace, and I don't believe it's because I started with C. It may be popular, but it presents a number of challenges in Python and in other languages like YAML. If you're going to buck the C trend, at least make it somewhat ergonomic like Lua which I learnt recently and kind of like.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  It’s funny both you and the GP comment followed the same exact steps as I did. I guess I technically learned Pascal with with Turbo Pascal and also with Delphi. But yeah it’s funny because Python is where I ended up. What I like about it is that it seems very pragmatic. There is no sloppiness in it but also no high dogma of how things ought to be if you want to be sure your program is correct. It lets you get stuff done and gets out of your way.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    Me three, and I think the intented blocks were a masterstroke. Why do so many others have redundant braces or begin/end markers while still need to indent?
userbinator 6y ago
I started with x86 Asm and was exposed to C and Pascal at roughly the same time (as well as XPL0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPL0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPL0 , which is described as a mix of the two but is really like "C with Pascal syntax"), and much prefer the brevity of the C syntax. I suspect that's the reason a lot of other languages also adopted it.
varispeed 6y ago
Are chillies the braces of cuisine?

jclulow 6y ago

I learnt BASIC when I was young, and then (Borland Turbo)Pascal after that, and C family languages (including C and Java and such) after that. Then I learnt Python, and even wrote a lot of it at Uni and for various jobs -- enough that I'm pretty firm in my distaste for significant whitespace, and I don't believe it's because I started with C. It may be popular, but it presents a number of challenges in Python and in other languages like YAML. If you're going to buck the C trend, at least make it somewhat ergonomic like Lua which I learnt recently and kind of like.

IgorPartola 6y ago
It’s funny both you and the GP comment followed the same exact steps as I did. I guess I technically learned Pascal with with Turbo Pascal and also with Delphi. But yeah it’s funny because Python is where I ended up. What I like about it is that it seems very pragmatic. There is no sloppiness in it but also no high dogma of how things ought to be if you want to be sure your program is correct. It lets you get stuff done and gets out of your way.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  Me three, and I think the intented blocks were a masterstroke. Why do so many others have redundant braces or begin/end markers while still need to indent?

userbinator 6y ago

I started with x86 Asm and was exposed to C and Pascal at roughly the same time (as well as XPL0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPL0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPL0 , which is described as a mix of the two but is really like "C with Pascal syntax"), and much prefer the brevity of the C syntax. I suspect that's the reason a lot of other languages also adopted it.

varispeed 6y ago

Are chillies the braces of cuisine?