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Re: Programming first steps.



On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:08 pm, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> Fact is, Python uses the concept of significant whitespace, which a lot
> of us simply don't like. That's a personal opinion, and in most cases
> probably not a rational thing, so providing arguments won't help. Can we
> cut this thread here, please? (yeah, I know I started it)

Heh heh, too late now. ;)  I agree completely it should be a non-issue, but 
the fact that it is brought up at all in the context of possibly discouraging 
someone from trying one of the best learning languages out there means I'm 
gonna reply to this anyway. 

Actually I think the whole "significant whitespace" problem that some folk 
(though never anyone who's actually used it) seem to have with python is 
purely a tiresome misuse of terms. "Significant whitespace" implies all sorts 
of things that scare off lots of folk, maybe with good reason.  If one needs 
to label something as unremarkable as python's particular method of defining 
blocks (by indentation instead of extraneous brackets or "start, end" or any 
other ugly waste of space and keystrokes) then "significant indentation" 
might be more accurate.  

As long as blocks are indented consistently, however you prefer (reads and 
types great, tastes even better) they are blocks.  It's quite sensible and 
straightforward.  Nothing else about whitespace matters a fig in python, and 
even for indentation it's not the whitespace in itself that has any 
significance it's the consistent grouping of statements in blocks: the syntax 
could just as easily specify that this be done with any consistent number of 
dots or dashes you preferred, but then that wouldn't read as well, which is 
one of the main points... *shrug*  

So, David, if you're still reading, I've used python to teach programming with 
more success than any other language. It's a very consistent and sensible 
language, and like many others here have pointed out the underlying concepts 
of programming are transferable between languages, so IMHO you might as well 
start off learning something enjoyable, simple, powerful, and maintainable. 
There is very good and very comprehensive documentation available with python 
including a tutorial, and plenty of other learning material linked to from 
python.org.  If you do think you'd like to try python and you like printed 
books, "Learning Python" by Mark Lutz & David Ascher would be a good place to 
start. 

-- 
Stephen M. Gava <smig@users.sourceforge.net>



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