yes but you will know that there is a problem before give the program in real use.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 10:16 PM Subject: Re: Java versus Python
No, it would do exactly what I said it -would- do, which is complain about brace issues lower since it doesn't know where the if statement was going to end. It would complain, as you said when it seen the next method.On 6/20/2011 1:00 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:In the example you just gave, it would tell you that you have a missing right brace, if that's the last code block in the file; otherwise, on the immediately proceeding line, presumably another function, per your own example, it would complain about the methoddeclaration.In other words, in the example you gave yourself, it would do exactly what you said the compiler would not do.Take care, Sina -----Original Message-----From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Littlefield, TylerSent: Monday, June 20, 2011 12:42 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Java versus Python First, my name is tyler. Second. I'm saying that sometimes a compiler does not stop you if you forget a brace. For example: if (bla) { ... ... } where the last } is the closing brace of a function. On 6/20/2011 10:28 AM, black ares wrote:show us tiller an example in java where the compiler don't stops you when you miss a brace. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To:<programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 6:10 PM Subject: Re: Java versus PythonA compiler may not always stop when you forget a closing brace, just as python may not always stop until later when it realizes your indentation is scrued up. sort of depends on what's going on. You'll usually get an error about it, and the error will be lower in the file, which makes both equally as hard to track down. On 6/20/2011 7:36 AM, Homme, James wrote:Hi, I'm probably going over this way too much. If you have something that talks to you or that you can feel when the indent level changes, you have something that helps you guard against issues like this. Whether you pay attention to that information might be another thing. This reminds me of filtering out Google adds on the web. I totally understand your point, though, about the language forcing a stop in the compile or run process when it sees a missing close brace. It does seem like a problem that could bite you when you rely on the parser to think that it understands where you intend to end a code block, rather than forcing you to explicitly tell it in some piece of text where you mean it to end.From a screen reader point of view, I honestly like the braceoption or> the end keyword option better than relying on changing indentation> level, but I also feel that for me, at least, at my current learning> level, I'm willing to take the risk of missing an indent level if> Python finally becomes the tool that gets me over the fear of learning> object orientation. That won't end up making me feel that Python is the> best language, though. It may well end up helping me pick up a language> more practical here at work, like Java. Both would make me very happy. Jim -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David TsengSent: Monday, June 20, 2011 9:19 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Java versus PythonFrom what I gather, Sina's making a point of failure argument againstpython. Consider any two if blocks in python and java. The python block contains statements subject to indentation for symantic purposes. In java, there's simply one point at which the programmer needs to close the block. Obviously, many trumps one if you consider where the writer of the twoblocks has a possibility of doing the wrong thing. In practice, thisdoes seem to be true from my experience especially when many people especially blind people touch the same file. On 6/20/11, Homme, James<james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Hi Sina, I'm probably totally missing a point because of my inexperience with various languages here. Should I be trying to make a connection between the point about indention (I like the head banging analogy) and the parser and variable typing stuff? Regarding variable parsing, I understand that, for example, the Java parser can more easily get upset with me if I forget to specify the type of something than the Python parser would. I also understand that the Python parser needs to check to see if I put some sort of quotes around something to tell if it's a string or some kind of number, and that it needs to check the number to see if I use a decimal point to figure out whether or not it's a float or an integer. I also understand that Python knows that a colon character signals that the next line should be indented, and that certain keywords start a code block, such as class, def, if, for, and others. I also understand that the Java parser wants me to put a left brace at the beginning of a class or method, and a right brace at the end of a class or method. What am I misunderstanding here? Thanks. Jim -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sina Bahram Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 7:52 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Java versus Python There are two issues, just so we don't' conflate them. One is the issue of the grammar in question, and the second is the parser for this grammar. So, the grammar for java uses left/right brace for block level scoping, and the grammar for python uses indention level. Short humorous aside, everyone says indentation instead of indention, but isn't indentation what you actually do to someone's head in a fight, not to your code? Sorry, I love grammars, regardless of context, *smile*, pun intended. Ok, so if one were to simply say that missing a space is like forgetting a brace, then, everything else being equal, it would be a similar error; however, it isn't exactly the same thing. Spacing for indention purposes happens on a line by line basis, as opposed to the one time operation that is putting, or not putting, an opening/closing brace. Also, forgetting a closing brace leaves a block of code open, and forgetting a space instead closes a block. Ok, so now if we have some code, if I forget a closing brace, that's not fun, but it's at least pretty easy to detect because chances are that I'll open a method declaration or do something else that doesn't happen inside of a block.If I forget a space, i simply close the block, so a bug can stay thereforever, because all that's happened is that I've simply closed it one line too soon, or maybe a few lines too soon ... so that code still runs, but maybe just not on the conditional I want, or maybe it overrides a value. In other words, I'm putting forth that forgetting a closing brace is actually more destructive than forgetting a space, but because of this, the parser quickly ends up finding something that is an illegal syntax error or just something at the semantic level that doesn't make sense, and so there's a much higher chance of you finding out about it before you ever come to run your program even once. That, I hope, addresses the issue of grammars. Now, moving onto parsers. The parser for Python, I feel, and this is subjective, doesn't give as good feedback to the programmer as the java one does. The reason for this really isn't the python guys' fault, at least not always, and that's because of a lack of typing. Because of this, sometimes error messages are perceived as vague and not useful. In java, alternatively, the compiler knows exactly what its expecting, what would even make the code syntactically correct, and so not only can it give you feedback along the lines of an argument being of a wrong type, but tell you what it was thinking should go there instead. Anyways, just some thoughts. Take care, Sina -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Homme, James Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 7:25 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Java versus Python Hi, What would Java have done in a case like this? According to me, this would be a logic error whether or not it had anything to do with indentation. I would think that it would be very easy to miss a right brace at the end of a code block. This would especially be true since Java allows you to have a single statement without using a right brace. It could be that I am missing something here in my thinking. Jim -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Perry Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2011 12:22 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Java versus Python This is true while I won't get into the what language is better since I write in too many in my job to even want to have an opinion people need to realize that miss placed spaces are nothing like context problems in other languages. If you miss place a block of spaced lines you don't just cause an error in the code. In fact the code might run along happily with no errors but the code won't do what you want. This is one of the down falls of python. There was actually a bug in the Icon and Braille+ that has been out for years that we only just recently found because of this very fact. One of the sighted guys that works on the project even missed it because the block of 10 lines of code just looked like it was supposed to be out there on its own. Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John J. Boyer Sent: Friday, June 17, 2011 11:38 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Java versus Python The mandatory indentation in Python means that a single misplaced whitespacecan entirely destroy a program. This is not very robust. C programmersusually make sure their code is nicely indented by using a utility like the Gnu indent. I'm still looking for something similar for Java. Manual indentation is too error-prone. John On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 08:32:55PM -0600, Littlefield, Tyler wrote:Java uses it's indentation much like braces are used. It's not wherethings have to be in specific columns, but indentation sort of solvesa couple problems. 1) It means that all blocks of code are denoted by a deeper indentation level than the block that branched it.2) It also means that people usually stick to a nice style. I've seena lot of different code, for example: while (bla) do_something(); while (bla) { do_something } while (bla) { do_something(); } Indentation can be a bit hard to get used to, but I personally like it quite a lot. On 6/17/2011 8:30 PM, John J. Boyer wrote:The thing I dislike about Python is mandatory indentation. This seems to me a throwback to the old days of assembly language and Cobol, where things had to be in certain columns. I like the free-form syntax of Java and C. John On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 07:15:55PM -0700, David Tseng wrote:I personally find arguments about programming languages much analogous to those seen in politics. Both sides have great points but tend to drive one another towards opposite extremes. Some camps are die hard dynamic language practitioners while others stick to strongly typed code. I will say that strongly typed languages have kind of won the battle historically. Most of the industry writes in C-styled languages like C/C++, java, etc. Lisp, still beloved by many, kind of lost. Python, as many have shown, works wonderfully and frees up coders toactually code, is still largely a wrapper on C. For those who wantabsolute performance, it's considered still an extra level of indirection that's not worth the productivity gain. I love python and its free-form style and the amount of progress youcan make using it. Python excels at the rinse and repeat (compile,run, fix) style of coding. The few seconds you need to compile aC-styled language and run, you're already fixing the bug in python.You're not babied into writing object-oriented code ala java, but can independently mix in functional aspects if you wish. You can just as easily go OO if you want as well. On 6/17/11, Alex Hall<mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:Programming is certainly a matter of preference in most situations. I would probably give up if the only option were php, since I really hate that language (no offense to anyone). Java is easy enough, but I agree that it feels bulky at times. I like Python's ease of use and readability, plus you can create executables with it, something that is difficult in java. Some people don't like that python is loosely typed, but I prefer saying: name=raw_input("Enter your name: ") to, if memory serves: name=new String(); in=new InputReader(); name=in.readLine(); or something along those lines. On 6/17/11, Littlefield, Tyler<tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:I've used both. I really like python because it comes on most *nix systems. I also like Python because of it's flexability andversatility.Java is nice enough, but it feels big bulky and clunky to me. That and they seem to have some serious naming convention issues. Sometimes things are capitalized, sometimes they're not--.net makesmore sense.On 6/17/2011 6:49 PM, John J. Boyer wrote:There has been a lot of discussion on the list lately about Python. Why is that?Personally i much prefer Java. Its syntx makes a lot more sense and it is just as powerful, if not more. A command-line build system like ant can take most of the hassle out ofworking with Java classes.personally, I prefer this to Eclipse. BrailleBlaster is written in Java. I am using openjdk-1.6, Eclipse SWT and Apache Ant. John-- Take care, Ty my website: http://tds-solutions.net my blog: http://tds-solutions.net/blog skype: st8amnd127 My programs don't have bugs; they're randomly added features! __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind-- Have a great day, Alex (msg sent from GMail website)mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx; http://www.facebook.com/mehgcap __________ Viewthe list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind-- Take care, Ty my website: http://tds-solutions.net my blog: http://tds-solutions.net/blog skype: st8amnd127 My programs don't have bugs; they're randomly added features! __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind--John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer Abilitiessoft, Inc.http://www.abilitiessoft.com Madison, Wisconsin USA Developing software for people with disabilities __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind This e-mail and any attachments to it are confidential and are intended solely for use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and then delete it. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not keep, use, disclose, copy or distribute this e-mail without the author's prior permission. The views expressed in this e-mail message do not necessarily represent the views of Highmark Inc., its subsidiaries, or affiliates. __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind-- Take care, Ty my website: http://tds-solutions.net my blog: http://tds-solutions.net/blog skype: st8amnd127 My programs don't have bugs; they're randomly added features! __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind-- Take care, Ty my website: http://tds-solutions.net my blog: http://tds-solutions.net/blog skype: st8amnd127 My programs don't have bugs; they're randomly added features! __________View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
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