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!
# | | Last changed: Thu May 14 22:50:33 2009