Random Python musing
It occurs to me that from an advocacy point of view, Python's significant whitespace is kind of brilliant.
It's a defensible design decision, in that the designer has traded a certain amount of source-code fragility for improved readability. If you want the readability enough that you're willing to be a bit paranoid about what happens to the whitespace, it's a worthwhile trade. If not, then it's not.
In other words, it's a matter of personal preference.
But that makes it controversial. Invariably, when someone starts
complaining about the language, the first thing they start with is the
most obvious--the indentation--and the discussion immediately
degenerates to something with the calibre of emacs versus vi. Five
hundred posts later with nothing resolved beyond I like it
and I
don't like it
, everyone gets sick of the whole thing and Python's
real shortcomings are never discussed.
Brilliant!
# Posted 2009-05-15 22:49:00 UTC; last changed 2009-05-15 22:50:00 UTC