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Slashdot called and want their comment back, haha! Whitespace blocks significantly reduce redundancy and are quite elegant imnsho. If you’re having trouble wi

Slashdot called and want their comment back, haha! Whitespace blocks significantly reduce redundancy and are quite elegant imnsho. If you’re having trouble with them, use a programmer's editor with indentation guides like notepad++ or geany. These are considered basic features these days. Other simple things which reduce Python annoyances are tools like pyflakes and the blue formatter.

JohnFen 4y ago
We disagree about whitespace blocks. That's fair. > If you’re having trouble with them, use a programmers editor with indentation guides like notepad++ or geany. Yes, of course. Python makes that pretty much essential, which is one of my complaints about Python. A language that requires a special editor is a language that is deficient, IMO. There are a ton of other, more minor, aspects of Python that makes it unpleasant for me. It's not just the whitespace thing. That's just the one that grinds my gears the most, because it's the one that slows me down the most. But note what I haven't said here -- I haven't said that Python sucks. I only said that I hate using it, despite being pretty fluent in it and having used it for years.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  It’s not required to use a basic editor from the early 90s, no… but it can help on a big codebase. Why handicap yourself? I make patches once in a while with nano/micro without issue. Maybe your functions are just too long, dunno. A lot of folks can’t survive today without a giant ide awhile you advocate not to use something downright tiny in comparison. Do you hate working with jpeg or blender files because they require software? Rather move bits with a magnetic needle and steady hand? Admit I was put off by it for an hour or so as well. One spring day in 2001? That afternoon I realized it as a masterstroke and didn’t write another line of c, perl, or java by choice for almost two decades. Two ways to delimit blocks is redundant. Either one indents already or the project is a disaster.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Again, just to make sure I'm being very clear, note what I said in my original comment. I wish that I enjoyed Python. I did not say, and don't assert, that Python is bad or that nobody else should enjoy it. I just wish that I did. > A lot of folks can’t survive today without a giant ide while you advocate not to use something tiny in comparison I'm not advocating anything. I'm stating my personal preferences. But I also make sure that I don't rely on a giant IDE for any language. I use a couple of different ones at work, but I don't use one at home (even though my hobby projects are no less complex), because I've found that using IDEs encourages me to engage in poor programming practices. I am not saying that nobody should use IDEs or that they make people worse programmers. I'm speaking for myself. I want to deeply understand the languages I use. > Do you hate working with jpeg or blender files because they require software? Rather move bits with a magnetic needle and steady hand? Of course not. Those are not human-readable data collections are need a tool to make them understandable by a human. A programming language is supposed to be directly understandable by a human, though, and if you need a tool to make it so, that strikes me as a failure of the design of the language. > Two ways to delimit blocks is redundant. Either one indents already or the project is a disaster. Eh, each to his own. Yes, there is a redundancy there, but I think it's a redundancy that brings value and reduces error.
    - mixmastamyk 4y ago
      Belt and suspenders, eh? Not sure how well-known but many 3D scene formats are text, especially early ones. Similar to svg conceptually, which many are familiar with. At a certain complexity, writing it by hand is no longer practical and software support approaches necessity.
      - JohnFen 4y ago
        This is very true. I do 3D printing, and am also very familiar with the fact that STL files are text files. I even edit them by hand from time to time -- but I still use software to manipulate them, for obvious reasons. It boils down to "the right tool for the job", of course, and like every developer, I choose my tools with an eye toward the goals I want to accomplish. That my goals and yours aren't 100% aligned is to be expected. We're different people. And that also means that at times, a tool that is appropriate for your use case may not be appropriate for mine. And vice versa.

JohnFen 4y ago

We disagree about whitespace blocks. That's fair. > If you’re having trouble with them, use a programmers editor with indentation guides like notepad++ or geany. Yes, of course. Python makes that pretty much essential, which is one of my complaints about Python. A language that requires a special editor is a language that is deficient, IMO. There are a ton of other, more minor, aspects of Python that makes it unpleasant for me. It's not just the whitespace thing. That's just the one that grinds my gears the most, because it's the one that slows me down the most. But note what I haven't said here -- I haven't said that Python sucks. I only said that I hate using it, despite being pretty fluent in it and having used it for years.

mixmastamyk 4y ago
It’s not required to use a basic editor from the early 90s, no… but it can help on a big codebase. Why handicap yourself? I make patches once in a while with nano/micro without issue. Maybe your functions are just too long, dunno. A lot of folks can’t survive today without a giant ide awhile you advocate not to use something downright tiny in comparison. Do you hate working with jpeg or blender files because they require software? Rather move bits with a magnetic needle and steady hand? Admit I was put off by it for an hour or so as well. One spring day in 2001? That afternoon I realized it as a masterstroke and didn’t write another line of c, perl, or java by choice for almost two decades. Two ways to delimit blocks is redundant. Either one indents already or the project is a disaster.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Again, just to make sure I'm being very clear, note what I said in my original comment. I wish that I enjoyed Python. I did not say, and don't assert, that Python is bad or that nobody else should enjoy it. I just wish that I did. > A lot of folks can’t survive today without a giant ide while you advocate not to use something tiny in comparison I'm not advocating anything. I'm stating my personal preferences. But I also make sure that I don't rely on a giant IDE for any language. I use a couple of different ones at work, but I don't use one at home (even though my hobby projects are no less complex), because I've found that using IDEs encourages me to engage in poor programming practices. I am not saying that nobody should use IDEs or that they make people worse programmers. I'm speaking for myself. I want to deeply understand the languages I use. > Do you hate working with jpeg or blender files because they require software? Rather move bits with a magnetic needle and steady hand? Of course not. Those are not human-readable data collections are need a tool to make them understandable by a human. A programming language is supposed to be directly understandable by a human, though, and if you need a tool to make it so, that strikes me as a failure of the design of the language. > Two ways to delimit blocks is redundant. Either one indents already or the project is a disaster. Eh, each to his own. Yes, there is a redundancy there, but I think it's a redundancy that brings value and reduces error.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    Belt and suspenders, eh? Not sure how well-known but many 3D scene formats are text, especially early ones. Similar to svg conceptually, which many are familiar with. At a certain complexity, writing it by hand is no longer practical and software support approaches necessity.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      This is very true. I do 3D printing, and am also very familiar with the fact that STL files are text files. I even edit them by hand from time to time -- but I still use software to manipulate them, for obvious reasons. It boils down to "the right tool for the job", of course, and like every developer, I choose my tools with an eye toward the goals I want to accomplish. That my goals and yours aren't 100% aligned is to be expected. We're different people. And that also means that at times, a tool that is appropriate for your use case may not be appropriate for mine. And vice versa.