5 ms·

Really, why? You wouldn't hire someone that has some "language aesthetic preferences", although a bit different that the mainstream ones? He said "preventing me

by nnq 14y ago

Really, why? You wouldn't hire someone that has some "language aesthetic preferences", although a bit different that the mainstream ones? He said "preventing me for ever liking Python" not "I'll never touch it because of this".

pyre 14y ago
This is really the same as saying, "I won't work for company X because I don't think the brackets in the C++ code should be on the following line[1]!" [1] E.g.: int main() { } vs. int main() { } This is an apt analogy because most companies will have some sort of code style guide that you have to follow, which doesn't make "coding at company X where bracket placement is enforced" much different from "coding in Python where whitespace is enforced." I've yet to come across someone that had a severe hatred of Python due to the significant whitespace that was a programmer I respected. The last person that I knew (who had a visceral hatred of Python whitespace) wrote Perl code like this: sub func1 { shift->func2(shift)->func3(@_) } or sub func1 { grep { $_[0]->func2($_) } $_[0]->func3() } Note: These are literally code samples with the function names changed. I don't know any Perl programmers that would condone this sort of code. It's a maintenance nightmare, especially since these were not one-off instances. Seems to me that the people that have a hatred of Python's handling of whitespace don't like being 'constrained' by their language, and are probably happier with Ruby or Perl.
- berntb 14y ago
  There are some problems with the whitespace in Python. I wrote some code with lots of nameless functions as input parameters (think JavaScript style or Ruby blocks), which of course was an ugly pain to port to Python with no multi-line lambdas. List comprehensions is another example -- a kludge coming from that the lack of multi instruction lambdas stop real map functions. (The fun part is that this necessity is touted as something good, instead of admitting that it is unnecessary complexity to learn.)
  - spacemanaki 14y ago
    > There are some problems with the whitespace in Python. > I wrote some code with lots of nameless functions as input parameters (think JavaScript style or Ruby blocks), which of course was an ugly pain to port to Python with no multi-line lambdas. As nnq points out elsewhere in this thread, this doesn't have anything to do with significant whitespace. Python only allows you to have a single expression in the body of a lambda, and from what I've read the reason it stays this way is to discourage using a lambda as an argument to map, fold, filter & friends. The usual suggestion from Python programmers is to just use a locally defined, named function, which to be honest is often what I do anyway in languages like ML, because it's clearer. And anyway, just because it was hard to port some code from language A to language B due to something different about B doesn't really seem like a valid knock against B.
    - berntb 14y ago
      My argument was that a lack of real anonymous functions (> 1 instruction) is a problem in some quite common and useful scenarios. If you REALLY can give good references that show this is wrong, I'm very interested (like, I would guess, most Ruby users). (It would also be interesting with a link to a PEP or something with, as you claim, arguments that map etc should be discouraged -- and that is why no multi line lambdas exists. For instance, how would the syntax look like??)
      - dangerlibrary 14y ago
        For most use cases where you want map/filter/etc, you can chain list comprehensions using generators.
        berntb 14y ago
        You have no relevant comment on what I wrote either, I take it? Here I asked for references about the GP's claims. Also, welcome to HN (or are the prepared troll accounts with a few hundreds of Karma running out? :-) ).
- alberich 14y ago
  Actually, saying that you'll never like a given detail about a language is not the same as saying that you'll never work for company X because of that specific detail. It is not a logical conclusion, unless you are implying that for one to work for someone else you really need to like everything about the job at hand. I see no reason why you can't do something for money that you wouldn't do for your personal pleasure.

by nnq 14y ago

pyre 14y ago

This is really the same as saying, "I won't work for company X because I don't think the brackets in the C++ code should be on the following line[1]!" [1] E.g.: int main() { } vs. int main() { } This is an apt analogy because most companies will have some sort of code style guide that you have to follow, which doesn't make "coding at company X where bracket placement is enforced" much different from "coding in Python where whitespace is enforced." I've yet to come across someone that had a severe hatred of Python due to the significant whitespace that was a programmer I respected. The last person that I knew (who had a visceral hatred of Python whitespace) wrote Perl code like this: sub func1 { shift->func2(shift)->func3(@_) } or sub func1 { grep { $_[0]->func2($_) } $_[0]->func3() } Note: These are literally code samples with the function names changed. I don't know any Perl programmers that would condone this sort of code. It's a maintenance nightmare, especially since these were not one-off instances. Seems to me that the people that have a hatred of Python's handling of whitespace don't like being 'constrained' by their language, and are probably happier with Ruby or Perl.

berntb 14y ago
There are some problems with the whitespace in Python. I wrote some code with lots of nameless functions as input parameters (think JavaScript style or Ruby blocks), which of course was an ugly pain to port to Python with no multi-line lambdas. List comprehensions is another example -- a kludge coming from that the lack of multi instruction lambdas stop real map functions. (The fun part is that this necessity is touted as something good, instead of admitting that it is unnecessary complexity to learn.)
- spacemanaki 14y ago
  > There are some problems with the whitespace in Python. > I wrote some code with lots of nameless functions as input parameters (think JavaScript style or Ruby blocks), which of course was an ugly pain to port to Python with no multi-line lambdas. As nnq points out elsewhere in this thread, this doesn't have anything to do with significant whitespace. Python only allows you to have a single expression in the body of a lambda, and from what I've read the reason it stays this way is to discourage using a lambda as an argument to map, fold, filter & friends. The usual suggestion from Python programmers is to just use a locally defined, named function, which to be honest is often what I do anyway in languages like ML, because it's clearer. And anyway, just because it was hard to port some code from language A to language B due to something different about B doesn't really seem like a valid knock against B.
  - berntb 14y ago
    My argument was that a lack of real anonymous functions (> 1 instruction) is a problem in some quite common and useful scenarios. If you REALLY can give good references that show this is wrong, I'm very interested (like, I would guess, most Ruby users). (It would also be interesting with a link to a PEP or something with, as you claim, arguments that map etc should be discouraged -- and that is why no multi line lambdas exists. For instance, how would the syntax look like??)
    - dangerlibrary 14y ago
      For most use cases where you want map/filter/etc, you can chain list comprehensions using generators.
      - berntb 14y ago
        You have no relevant comment on what I wrote either, I take it? Here I asked for references about the GP's claims. Also, welcome to HN (or are the prepared troll accounts with a few hundreds of Karma running out? :-) ).
alberich 14y ago
Actually, saying that you'll never like a given detail about a language is not the same as saying that you'll never work for company X because of that specific detail. It is not a logical conclusion, unless you are implying that for one to work for someone else you really need to like everything about the job at hand. I see no reason why you can't do something for money that you wouldn't do for your personal pleasure.