From: Juan Zanos <juan_zanos@...>
Date: 2009-05-29T05:12:36+09:00
Subject: Re: Pythonic indentation (or: beating a dead horse)


On May 28, 2009, at 3:51 PM, James Britt wrote:

> Juan Zanos wrote:
>> On May 28, 2009, at 2:33 PM, James Britt wrote:
>
>>> But we're back in the realm of subjectivity regarding what is  
>>> "bare minimum of code" and "superfluous".  Ruby could be made  
>>> quite terse, but that's not a proper goal.
>> Terseness is a perfectly reasonable goal.  It's a corollary to  
>> Occam's Razer.
>
> Hardly.
>
>> No?   If you're going to sacrifice conciseness you should have a  
>> good reason
>> for doing so.
>
> Readability for humans.
>
> terse != concise.
You're splitting some fine hairs.  Apparently you have your own  
dictionary.  http://www.thefreedictionary.com/terse

>
>
> I'm for concise speech, but not so fond of terseness.
>
>
>>>
>>> There is value in redundancy, and the trick is to find the right  
>>> balance, not to eliminate it completely.
>> Exactly.  So there should be a choice.  Right?
>
> In what? In how a language is designed?  You're free to design  
> whatever you like.
Thank you for granting your permission.   I am humbled:)
>
>
> BTW, one thing about these sort of threads that puzzles me is why,  
> given the amazing choice of programming languages, do people push,  
> for example, to have Ruby be like Python,  when Python exists?  And  
> do these same people also go on Python lists and argue to make  
> Python more like Ruby?
>
> If you want terseness, use Perl or APL.


A weak argument.  Python is not Ruby with optional ends.    Neither is  
Perl or APL.   So can I respond with an equally weak one?  Why not use  
a statically typed language where there is far more redundancy, which  
is apparently so necessary for human readability?

Yes, why indeed on a list about the Ruby language do people insist on  
talking about the Ruby language.