• BougieBirdie@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    41·
    2 months ago

    A hammer is beginner friendly, but learning to use a hammer doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready to build a house with it.

    • AdNecrias@lemmy.pt
      4·
      2 months ago

      Among all of them at least python is the choice generically people learn when they don’t want to learn programming, just want to program stuff as a helper tool to manage data. For those, python is just fine and the learning material around is tailored to for that.

      That’s how you trick people into programming. You then see people making scripts that take days to run, but it’s fine, they’re only going to use it twice and are busy enough to be able to wait

  • rhabarba@feddit.org
    124·
    2 months ago

    For all of those, Lisp is the more logical choice. Plus, whitespace as syntax is the worst possible design decision.

      • Onno (VK6FLAB)@lemmy.radio
        5·
        2 months ago

        Perl is the only language that looks just as incomprehensible before and after a rot13 transformation.

        Python on the other hand is the only language that will cause your application to stop working because you mixed up tabs and spaces, even though it looks perfectly fine on your scr.

        And lisp is hard to say if you have one.

        Edit: aa -> after a

        • Overspark@feddit.nl
          3·
          2 months ago

          It is absolutely fine to mix tabs and spaces in Python, as long as you are consistent about it. It’s not recommended though, as it’s easy to mess up if you’re not paying attention. Most IDE’s will convert tabs to spaces anyway so it’s a bit of a non-issue.

        • cfi@lemmy.world
          2·
          2 months ago

          Perl is the only language that looks just as incomprehensible before and after a rot13 transformation.

          APL would like a word, though I imagine ROT13 on APL source code might actually be horrific.

        • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
          2·
          2 months ago

          Perl is the only language that looks just as incomprehensible before and aa rot13 transformation.

          Lol. You’re not wrong.

    • unalivejoy@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      You say that, then use a language that allows you to do this (it’s not lisp)

      if (foo);
{
  bar();
}
      • rhabarba@feddit.org
        4·
        2 months ago

        You can make embarrassing mistakes in virtually any programming language that’s not too esoteric.

        When I still used Python for prototyping (today, I usually use Go for that), it happened much too often that I did this:

        if foo:
    bar()
   foobar() # syntax error

        In Lisp, however, both errors are much harder to make (not even considering GNU Emacs’s superb auto-indentation - which is what most Lispers use these days, as far as I know):

        (when foo)  ;; <- obvious!
    (bar))

        (when foo
    (bar)
          (foobar)  ;; <- still valid
(quux))  ;; <- also still valid
    • TheHarpyEagle@pawb.social
      2·
      2 months ago

      I’ve had very few issues with whitespace in my decade or so of using python, especially since git and IDEs do a lot to standardize it. I’m a Python simp, tho

        • Scoopta@programming.dev
          0·
          2 months ago

          …is it truly that bad? npm is the reason I don’t even install software based on node on my machines… python doesn’t seem nearly as bad by comparison? (I run it, just don’t like to write it) Maybe it’s worse than I realize

          • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
            1·
            2 months ago

            Not as bad. But if a bigger tool like Paperplane doesn’t run after an update, it’s likely some changed dependency in python.