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Good points. But favoring Python lists over recursion is like favoring chocolate over logging. However, I'm probably just playing gotcha here. My apologies t

Good points. But favoring Python lists over recursion is like favoring chocolate over logging. However, I'm probably just playing gotcha here. My apologies to HN and Guido. My more important point is that recursion is good for real world stuff.

dkarl 17y ago
Good points. But favoring Python lists over recursion is like favoring chocolate over logging. No, no, it's not at all, not when you approach it from Guido's point of view. To him, the crucial question is, "What's the right way for beginners to process data?" Python and its built-in data structures support iteration and list indexing because that's how beginners do it. Python does not support tail calls because Guido thinks it's a mistake to teach recursion to beginners. I think everyone is misunderstanding Guido's point because they just can't imagine anyone taking his point of view, so they imagine him saying something else. Joe Marshall even called Guido's main points (which he correctly identified, and then ungraciously caricatured) "a sideshow" and said the "true argument" is about the power of recursion. Sorry, Guido doesn't care about the power of recursion, because it isn't valuable to his target programmers, the programmers he wants to serve. He really thinks tail call support would be a very minor feature in Python because it's not important whether you can program in Python that way. He thinks complete stack trace information is very important because it makes things easy and transparent for beginners. That's what's important to Guido and, I would argue, to most Python programmers. When it comes to the future of Python, that's what matters, and Joe Marshall is the sideshow.
- herdrick 17y ago
  Python's lists are just as good for recursion as Scheme's cons cells - the data structure doesn't really matter. That was my nitpicky point. I agree that Python's emphasis on beginner-friendliness was the smart choice and led, ironically, to its current dominance in numerical computation.

dkarl 17y ago

Good points. But favoring Python lists over recursion is like favoring chocolate over logging. No, no, it's not at all, not when you approach it from Guido's point of view. To him, the crucial question is, "What's the right way for beginners to process data?" Python and its built-in data structures support iteration and list indexing because that's how beginners do it. Python does not support tail calls because Guido thinks it's a mistake to teach recursion to beginners. I think everyone is misunderstanding Guido's point because they just can't imagine anyone taking his point of view, so they imagine him saying something else. Joe Marshall even called Guido's main points (which he correctly identified, and then ungraciously caricatured) "a sideshow" and said the "true argument" is about the power of recursion. Sorry, Guido doesn't care about the power of recursion, because it isn't valuable to his target programmers, the programmers he wants to serve. He really thinks tail call support would be a very minor feature in Python because it's not important whether you can program in Python that way. He thinks complete stack trace information is very important because it makes things easy and transparent for beginners. That's what's important to Guido and, I would argue, to most Python programmers. When it comes to the future of Python, that's what matters, and Joe Marshall is the sideshow.

herdrick 17y ago
Python's lists are just as good for recursion as Scheme's cons cells - the data structure doesn't really matter. That was my nitpicky point. I agree that Python's emphasis on beginner-friendliness was the smart choice and led, ironically, to its current dominance in numerical computation.