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Interesting talk on Python vs. Ruby and how he would like Python to have just a bit more syntactic flexibility.

John Bokma john at castleamber.com
Mon Feb 22 15:31:18 EST 2010 
Jonathan Gardner <jgardner at jonathangardner.net> writes:

> On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 10:22 AM, John Bokma <john at castleamber.com> wrote:
>> Jonathan Gardner <jgardner at jonathangardner.net> writes:
>>> On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:16 PM, Lie Ryan <lie.1296 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Now, why don't we start a PEP to make python a fully-functional language
>>>> then?
>>>
>>> Because people don't think the same way that programs are written in
>>> functional languages.
>>
>> Heh! When I learned Miranda it felt natural to me. Prolog on the other
>> hand...
>>
>> In short: I am afraid you're overgeneralizing here; it depends on one's
>> background. If not, citation needed ;-)
>>
>
> Unfortunately, this is something that is hardly measurable. Short of a
> survey (of whom? of what?), there can be no objective evaluation. To
> date, I don't know of any such studies or surveys.
>
> I won't deny that really smart people enjoy the challenge of
> programming in a functional style, and some even find it easier to
> work with. However, when it comes to readability and maintenance, I
> appreciate the statement-based programming style, simply because it's
> easier for me to understand an debug.

In my class there where basically 2 groups of people: the ones who got
functional programming and the ones who had a hard time with it. The
latter group consisted mostly of people who had been programming in
languages like C and Pascal for years; they had a hard time thinking
functionally. The former group consisted mostly of people who had little
or no programming experience, with a few exceptions (including me :-) ).

So I have the feeling it has more to do with your background then how
people think / are wired.

-- 
John Bokma                                                               j3b

Hacking & Hiking in Mexico -  http://johnbokma.com/
http://castleamber.com/ - Perl & Python Development
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