3 ms·

And made the mistake of making whitespace significant thereby driving off people in droves.

by gnaritas 15y ago

dextorious 15y ago
It's 2011. We love significant whitespace now, get on with the times...
- neimado 15y ago
  No, "we" really do not love significant whitespace.
- gnaritas 15y ago
  No, we don't. Kids who don't know better might think it's cool; it isn't.
  - dextorious 15y ago
    Yeah. Because only kids use and love Python and like the significant whitespace, right? And Haskell with it's significant whitespace --yeah, that's another language for "kids who don't know better"... Anyway --you're a Smalltalk guy. How do you get to talk about weird syntax people don't like? Do many people like interleaving-argument selectors?
    - gnaritas 15y ago
      You're mistaken if you don't think a shit ton of people dislike Python exactly because of significant white space as well as it being the source of a great many bugs. As for Smalltalk, yes, they do like them, since faking them by passing literal hashes is a common pattern.
      - dextorious 15y ago
        """You're mistaken if you don't think a shit ton of people dislike Python exactly because of significant white space""" Those people don't use Python anyway. There are a shit ton of people disliking anything you can think of. I don't know of many people that tried actually USING Python and still dislike the use of whitespace. I also don't think the "whitespace haters" are intelligent about it or have any basis. For one, you should follow EXACTLY the same whitespace conventions in any bracketed language, even C. That is: you should properly indent blocks, and you should not mix spaces and tabs. If someone does not do that, I don't really think many people would like to work with his code. And if he already does that, then Python's whitespace is not any different, it just removes the brackets. """as well as it being the source of a great many bugs.""" I cannot think of ANY bug that can be caused by Python's use of significant whitespace. On the contrary, it prevents a lot of common bugs in bracketed languages (if/else nesting, etc). The only think Python's use of whitespace can cause is compiler error messages (when you have messed the indentation) -- which is totally different from "bugs". So, what bugs are you talking about? Any specific example? """As for Smalltalk, yes, they do like them, since faking them by passing literal hashes is a common pattern.""" Literal hashed are more like named arguments than Smalltalk selectors. For one, elements inside them are optional...
        gnaritas 15y ago
        The issues around significant white space are well known and well blogged about, I'm not going to re-argue them here; google it you must, it's an old argument. If it doesn't bother you, so be it, but you're not going to sell me on it because it's crap; I can't stand Python. If you don't think it has ever caused bugs, then you aren't thinking very hard or you've not looked into the opposing point of view at all. In any case, I'm done discussing it with you.
        dextorious 15y ago
        """If it doesn't bother you, so be it, but you're not going to sell me on it because it's crap; I can't stand Python.""" Yeah, I thought that was your conception on the issue: i.e just blind prejudice. """If you don't think it has ever caused bugs, then you aren't thinking very hard or you've not looked into the opposing point of view at all. In any case, I'm done discussing it with you.""" You invoked some mysterious bugs due to Python's whitespace rules, I asked for a specific example, but conveniently "you are done discussing it". Nice.
        gnaritas 15y ago
        I told you to google it because it's common, don't be an ass. Obviously I'm talking about the difficulty of sharing code and cut and paste issues between developers who have different ideas about tabs vs spaces. It's not blind prejudice, signifigant white space is a valid reason to dislike a language; that's anything but blind. That is but one of several reasons I don't like Python, and none of them are blind. Ruby is my scripting language of choice when Bash isn't sufficient.
- malandrew 15y ago
  Assume you've never programmed before. Would you want to debug a program that has a significant whitespace bug? It's much easier for the average person to spot an unbalanced parenthesis that an incorrectly sized whitespace. Getting stuck and being frustrated hurts motivation a lot. Now curly brackets and syntax may be seen by a person as an irritation or inconvenience compared to whitespace, but I'd say it's better to use a language with an inconvenience than one which is more likely to leave you stuck. You, I and others used to programming with insignificant whitespace have developed and eye for detail and can rapidly spot a whitespace but. The general population with no programming experience can't consistently space most of the documents in their life, but they can typically place periods correctly.
  - dextorious 15y ago
    """Assume you've never programmed before. Would you want to debug a program that has a significant whitespace bug? It's much easier for the average person to spot an unbalanced parenthesis that an incorrectly sized whitespace.""" I'd argue that for a beginner it's equally difficult. And how about this equally difficult to spot classic bug: if (f==x) do_something() and_also_do_this() //oops! a language with significant whitespace does not permit it. It gets people using the correct indentation levels from the start, whay they should have used anyway in any language, even one where whitespace doesn't matter. I propose we don't talk about languages with "significant whitespace", but instead about "languages with proper indentation enforced".
    - chimeracoder 15y ago
      > I propose we don't talk about languages with "significant whitespace", but instead about "languages with proper indentation enforced". Yes, 'significant whitespace' is too sweeping a term to be useful. I've heard people complain about Python's 'significant whitespace' until they realize that it uses basically the exact same whitespace rules as Java does, except with sensible indentation rules instead of braces. http://www.secnetix.de/olli/Python/block_indentation.hawk http://www.secnetix.de/olli/Python/block_indentation.hawk
    - melling 15y ago
- mindcrime 15y ago
  Speak for yourself. I can tolerate Python's whitespace standards, but I - for one - damn sure don't "love" anything about whitespace being significant.
zephyrfalcon 15y ago
Yeah, because it totally didn't work for Python... :3
- knieveltech 15y ago
  Touting what is arguably the most hated single feature of a particular programming language as a clear success? Uh...ok.
  - zephyrfalcon 15y ago
    It is probably the most controversial feature. Most people either hate it or love it. I think it's hated mostly by those who don't use Python, and well-loved by those who do. It was not the first programming language to use significant whitespace, but it is probably the most mainstream one that does, and it did pave the way for other languages to do the same. So it makes sense (IMHO) that sometimes other languages copy this feature, because it makes code shorter and more readable. I haven't really heard any good arguments against significant whitespace, just the usual "but when I copy & paste a block the indentation might be off" (so use the indent/dedent function in your editor) and "I cannot mix tabs and spaces" (which you shouldn't do to begin with). The "hate" is mostly because people are not used to it. Not unlike Lisp's parentheses...
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
quadhome 15y ago
In the (vain) hope of arresting the whitespace flamewars: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SyntacticallySignificantWhitespaceConsideredHarmful http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SyntacticallySignificantWhitespaceCon...

And made the mistake of making whitespace significant thereby driving off people in droves.

dextorious 15y ago

It's 2011. We love significant whitespace now, get on with the times...

neimado 15y ago
No, "we" really do not love significant whitespace.
gnaritas 15y ago
No, we don't. Kids who don't know better might think it's cool; it isn't.
- dextorious 15y ago
  Yeah. Because only kids use and love Python and like the significant whitespace, right? And Haskell with it's significant whitespace --yeah, that's another language for "kids who don't know better"... Anyway --you're a Smalltalk guy. How do you get to talk about weird syntax people don't like? Do many people like interleaving-argument selectors?
  - gnaritas 15y ago
    You're mistaken if you don't think a shit ton of people dislike Python exactly because of significant white space as well as it being the source of a great many bugs. As for Smalltalk, yes, they do like them, since faking them by passing literal hashes is a common pattern.
    - dextorious 15y ago
      """You're mistaken if you don't think a shit ton of people dislike Python exactly because of significant white space""" Those people don't use Python anyway. There are a shit ton of people disliking anything you can think of. I don't know of many people that tried actually USING Python and still dislike the use of whitespace. I also don't think the "whitespace haters" are intelligent about it or have any basis. For one, you should follow EXACTLY the same whitespace conventions in any bracketed language, even C. That is: you should properly indent blocks, and you should not mix spaces and tabs. If someone does not do that, I don't really think many people would like to work with his code. And if he already does that, then Python's whitespace is not any different, it just removes the brackets. """as well as it being the source of a great many bugs.""" I cannot think of ANY bug that can be caused by Python's use of significant whitespace. On the contrary, it prevents a lot of common bugs in bracketed languages (if/else nesting, etc). The only think Python's use of whitespace can cause is compiler error messages (when you have messed the indentation) -- which is totally different from "bugs". So, what bugs are you talking about? Any specific example? """As for Smalltalk, yes, they do like them, since faking them by passing literal hashes is a common pattern.""" Literal hashed are more like named arguments than Smalltalk selectors. For one, elements inside them are optional...
      - gnaritas 15y ago
        The issues around significant white space are well known and well blogged about, I'm not going to re-argue them here; google it you must, it's an old argument. If it doesn't bother you, so be it, but you're not going to sell me on it because it's crap; I can't stand Python. If you don't think it has ever caused bugs, then you aren't thinking very hard or you've not looked into the opposing point of view at all. In any case, I'm done discussing it with you.
        dextorious 15y ago
        """If it doesn't bother you, so be it, but you're not going to sell me on it because it's crap; I can't stand Python.""" Yeah, I thought that was your conception on the issue: i.e just blind prejudice. """If you don't think it has ever caused bugs, then you aren't thinking very hard or you've not looked into the opposing point of view at all. In any case, I'm done discussing it with you.""" You invoked some mysterious bugs due to Python's whitespace rules, I asked for a specific example, but conveniently "you are done discussing it". Nice.
        gnaritas 15y ago
        I told you to google it because it's common, don't be an ass. Obviously I'm talking about the difficulty of sharing code and cut and paste issues between developers who have different ideas about tabs vs spaces. It's not blind prejudice, signifigant white space is a valid reason to dislike a language; that's anything but blind. That is but one of several reasons I don't like Python, and none of them are blind. Ruby is my scripting language of choice when Bash isn't sufficient.
malandrew 15y ago
Assume you've never programmed before. Would you want to debug a program that has a significant whitespace bug? It's much easier for the average person to spot an unbalanced parenthesis that an incorrectly sized whitespace. Getting stuck and being frustrated hurts motivation a lot. Now curly brackets and syntax may be seen by a person as an irritation or inconvenience compared to whitespace, but I'd say it's better to use a language with an inconvenience than one which is more likely to leave you stuck. You, I and others used to programming with insignificant whitespace have developed and eye for detail and can rapidly spot a whitespace but. The general population with no programming experience can't consistently space most of the documents in their life, but they can typically place periods correctly.
- dextorious 15y ago
  """Assume you've never programmed before. Would you want to debug a program that has a significant whitespace bug? It's much easier for the average person to spot an unbalanced parenthesis that an incorrectly sized whitespace.""" I'd argue that for a beginner it's equally difficult. And how about this equally difficult to spot classic bug: if (f==x) do_something() and_also_do_this() //oops! a language with significant whitespace does not permit it. It gets people using the correct indentation levels from the start, whay they should have used anyway in any language, even one where whitespace doesn't matter. I propose we don't talk about languages with "significant whitespace", but instead about "languages with proper indentation enforced".
  - chimeracoder 15y ago
    > I propose we don't talk about languages with "significant whitespace", but instead about "languages with proper indentation enforced". Yes, 'significant whitespace' is too sweeping a term to be useful. I've heard people complain about Python's 'significant whitespace' until they realize that it uses basically the exact same whitespace rules as Java does, except with sensible indentation rules instead of braces. http://www.secnetix.de/olli/Python/block_indentation.hawk http://www.secnetix.de/olli/Python/block_indentation.hawk
  - melling 15y ago
mindcrime 15y ago
Speak for yourself. I can tolerate Python's whitespace standards, but I - for one - damn sure don't "love" anything about whitespace being significant.

zephyrfalcon 15y ago

Yeah, because it totally didn't work for Python... :3

knieveltech 15y ago
Touting what is arguably the most hated single feature of a particular programming language as a clear success? Uh...ok.
- zephyrfalcon 15y ago
  It is probably the most controversial feature. Most people either hate it or love it. I think it's hated mostly by those who don't use Python, and well-loved by those who do. It was not the first programming language to use significant whitespace, but it is probably the most mainstream one that does, and it did pave the way for other languages to do the same. So it makes sense (IMHO) that sometimes other languages copy this feature, because it makes code shorter and more readable. I haven't really heard any good arguments against significant whitespace, just the usual "but when I copy & paste a block the indentation might be off" (so use the indent/dedent function in your editor) and "I cannot mix tabs and spaces" (which you shouldn't do to begin with). The "hate" is mostly because people are not used to it. Not unlike Lisp's parentheses...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

quadhome 15y ago

In the (vain) hope of arresting the whitespace flamewars: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SyntacticallySignificantWhitespaceConsideredHarmful http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SyntacticallySignificantWhitespaceCon...