From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2007-05-23T07:23:21+09:00
Subject: Re: How to adopt "Python Style" indentation for Ruby

On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 04:28:45AM +0900, Eric Mahurin wrote:
> On 5/22/07, Brad Phelan <bradphelan@xtargets.com> wrote:
> >I am not concerned really either way with the indentation thingie. I
> >don't think that is the main difference between python and Ruby. In my
> >op' the fact that Python does not do generic blocks is the main arguing
> >point. I am not sure why the indentation issue raises so much heat.
> 
> Agreed.  Indentation vs. other ways of delimiting code blocks is just
> a surface issue.  For the most part, it is just a preference thing.

That's why it draws so much heat: it's a preference thing.  People foo
don't like finding a language that suits their preferences, getting into
it and really getting familiar with it, then having someone bar come
from another language's norms to start suggesting it should be changed
to suit their (foo's) preferences less well.  Meanwhile, other people
bar who find a language that suits their preferences really well start
wanting to go around to all other languages they use and start
recommending those languages be modified to suit their preferences,
regardless of the fact that these other languages probably suit the
preferences of other people foo who already use them.  It relates to the
fact that everyone wants to believe his or her preferences are "right"
and others' are "wrong".

The term "religious war" or "holy war" in relation to programming
languages, vi/emacs/VisualStudio, et cetera, is disturbingly appropriate
because of the root psychological causes in common between these
arguments over preferences and those over religious observance
preferences, I think.


> 
> The lack of a real lambda (and its verbose syntax compared to ruby
> blocks) in python is a much bigger issue.  I still think python's
> crippling of the lambda has to do with the indentation thing.  The way
> they did it, indented code blocks ("suites") are only part of
> statements (not more generic expressions).  Since a lambda is an
> expression (probably used in an enclosing statment), it doesn't get to
> have generic code blocks.  With some rework, blocks delimited by
> indentation don't have to be so limited.

I remember reading that Guido just flat-out stated once that lambdas
would never be allowed to have more than one line, as though he simply
felt that multi-line lambdas were "bad" somehow.  I don't know if the
reasoning you suggest might have been behind it, but the way I read it,
it seemed like Guido is interested in mandating certain restrictions to
enforce his ideas of good programming practice.  The assumption there
would be that he believes multi-line lambdas interfere with some aspect
of good programming practice -- probably something to do with human
readability.  He might also simply want to discourage people from using
lambdas where objects "should" be used instead.  I could just be
misinterpreting the motivation, of course.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Thomas McCauley: "The measure of a man's real character is what he would do
if he knew he would never be found out."