/dev/chat

3:45 AM

@terdon I've never understood the argument against having whitespace be syntactically significant. People certainly find whitespace necessary to make the code readable; and there is a whole category of bugs prevented by having the way the code looks tied directly to what the code means. Care to try to make the case, just for my own understanding?

@FaheemMitha or perhaps you might answer the above message?

@FaheemMitha out of curiosity, what question was this? (I don't see it by looking in the obvious places.)

Wildcard

4:04 AM

@jesse_b short naps can be surprisingly refreshing, if you can actually manage to "shut down" that quickly. (I can once in a blue moon, but not ordinarily.)

Wildcard

4:38 AM

@AndrasDeak that's a great site, I don't think I've seen it before.

Faheem Mitha

7:15 AM

@Wildcard One issue is that formatting can easily get screwed up, for example when pasting. Or just by moving the cursor around. It's an intrinsically fragile thing.

If one makes systematic use of version control, it's not a huge issue. But still not ideal.

When nesting (like in loops), whitespace is obviously critical. And if it gets messed up, it can be non-trivial to fix. You have to go through the whole logic again. Of course, this is less of an issue if you break stuff up into small functions, but one may not chose to do so. For readability reasons, or for performance reasons.

@Wildcard meta.stackexchange.com/q/235322/158763:55232014

Also, unlike languages where whitespace isn't significant, you can't get the editor to format your code for you. You have to do it yourself. Compare Emacs support for C/C++ vs Python. The former does virtually flawless code indentation. The latter cannot do code indentation at all. I'm currently using Elpy, which is a big improvement over the Python mode I was previously using. (Though I'm told it is the same functionality, it's just that it needs to be configured.)

But of course even Elpy cannot magically format Python code.

It's also worth noting that syntactically significant whitespace is an outlier. I'm not aware of any others besides Python.

Stephen Kitt

@FaheemMitha well, there’s Whitespace :-P

terdon

7:54 AM

@Wildcard Personally, it bothers me first in principle, I like having braces for self contained bits of code. I find whitespace harder to follow.

Then, it makes it very hard to copy/paste and reuse bits of code. Either copying it from one source file to another where it has to be at a different level of indentation, making it easy to get it wrong, or into a terminal running a python shell for testing. If you have code that's part of a class, for example, and you want to test that in a shell, you need to remove one level of indentation.

Finally, it makes it easy to make a mistake if your editor doesn't indent properly (granted, not a big issue these days) or if you move something by mistake and then need to remember and figure out where it was nested. That can get tricky for complex code.

And yes, I know the python mantra that if it's a problem I am not coding well and should write better code, and it is indeed mostly true, but it doesn't change the fact that sometimes I might want to write something simple and ugly dammit, or that someone might not know any better.

@FaheemMitha What do you mean it can't do indentation for python? Of course it can! And quite well!

Michael Homer

@FaheemMitha make? Haskell?

For that matter, C: i + + + j is syntactically-significant whitespace away from two significantly different programs, though I guess you mean the off-side rule specifically

Andras Deak

8:43 AM

@terdon don't forget "use a proper editor"

@FaheemMitha emacs problem. Vim indents like a (py)charm

OK, ending blocks can be ambiguous

terdon

9:10 AM

@AndrasDeak I do. I use the world's best, prettiest, kindest and most beautiful editor. Emacs.

And it handles indentation just fine.

And yes, as my python skills have improved, the whitespace issue becomes less and less of a problem because I'm writing more "pythonic" code, and so smaller nested loops. I very rarely have indentation blocks that don't fit in a single page so I am far less often confused by it.

Nevertheless, I would still prefer to have braces. I guess old habits die hard.

Michael Homer

@terdon from __future__ import braces

terdon

Yeah, I know. But (and I realize this might seem contradictory after the above rant), that just feels like I'm making my life harder :P

I'm not that into braces :)

Stephen Kitt

@terdon from __future__ import belt

Andras Deak

lol

terdon

heh

Andras Deak

9:36 AM

TIL I could probably use my DSLR as a webcam unix.stackexchange.com/questions/604285/…

Kusalananda

9:53 AM

@terdon We are sorry to inform you that your moderating privileges on this forum are revoked :-)

Stephen Kitt

20 hours ago, by Jeff Schaller

@AndrasDeak if only ed(1) could solve world peace, too!

seems very à propos here

terdon

@Kusalananda Silence, vimfidel!

Kusalananda

:-P

My main editor has been nvi for about a year, actually

terdon

Mine too. Assuming you mean "not vi" :P

Kusalananda

:-P

terdon

10:00 AM

Oh wow, OK, this nvi thing has one hell of a lineage!

Nvi

nvi (new vi) is a re-implementation of the classic Berkeley text editor, ex/vi, traditionally distributed with BSD and, later, Unix systems. It was originally distributed as part of the Fourth Berkeley Software Distribution (4BSD). Due to licensing disputes between AT&T and the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, the CSRG was required to replace all Unix-derived portions of BSD source with new and unencumbered code. nvi was one of many components rewritten, despite the fact that the original vi was from UC Berkeley. AT&T had a legal claim over the license...

> It was originally derived from the first incarnation of elvis

!!!!

Presumably before the first time he died.

Andras Deak

He still merges PRs on his home planet

Tsundoku

10:37 AM

Seen on YouTube: "My dad is 93. I installed Mint 19. He says it's the best 'Windows' he's ever used. Never breaks, never demands updates. He tells people he has Windows Mint."

3

terdon

:)

I'd gotten my ex to switch to Linux using Mint and she as quite pleased with it. But only as long as we were together so she had ready tec support. She went back to Windows when we broke up :/ And my current partner is a mac person who won't be moved away from macs with a crowbar.

Tsundoku

There is a version of Zorin OS (Ultimate Edition) that looks a lot like Mac OS, but I doubt it would fool a hardened Mac user.

terdon

Yeah, the illusion would fail as as soon as she tried to connect her iphone to it :)

Plus, she's a professional artist, so design is incredibly important to her. It's usually her foremost concern, so Apple appeals to her.

And hey, at least it's not Windows and is an actual *nix system, so I'm happy :)

Tsundoku

10:54 AM

I've been a full-time Linux user for only two and a half years, but when I made the switch, it was so easy I regretted not having done it earlier. There were a few things that made it easier, such as not being dependent on MS Office and Outlook, having installed Fedora for user testing purposes and having done some light Debian admin work.

Andras Deak

@terdon we all rack up regrets during our lives

terdon

I've been one for just over twenty years now, so I barely remember what it was like to be a Windows user.

@AndrasDeak Eh, not really one of my big ones, to be honest :)

Andras Deak

I should've added ":P" :P

My mother hated "this debian" I installed on her ancient netbook and wanted "her ubuntu back". I did replace the OS but her problem was replacing gnome with xfce. She wanted something faster...

I really need to find a windows-looking linux for her...

something that would run on a literal matchbox

I think it's a dell inspiron mini 10...

Tsundoku

11:12 AM

Xfce can be customised quite a lot; it should be possible to get close to a Windows look, although I can't find a YouTube tutorial for the moment. (It's easier to find that sort of tutorial for Cinnamon.)

Andras Deak

She said she "couldn't find anything". Pretty much all she needs is chrome and nautilus and I put some shortcuts on her desktop... :)

Faheem Mitha

@terdon It can't indent deterministically. Or by itself, if you prefer. Obviously, since the indentation level isn't completely determined by the code. Since whitespace is syntactically meaningful.

To be even more specific, if I keep hitting tab, elpy will cycle through all the possible different levels of indentation. It even show them visibly, as gray bars (my background is currently black). But it doesn't know which one is correct, of course. How could it?

I got my parents to use a Linux-based system for a bit. Probably a mistake.

This was a while back, of course. They're both dead now.

I think there's some kind of a lesson in there, somewhere.

Andras Deak

11:32 AM

@FaheemMitha I'm sorry :(

Faheem Mitha

@AndrasDeak Thank you.

@AndrasDeak That was an interesting discussion yesterday, and I learned some new stuff. Thank you for sharing.

And everyone else too, of course.

terdon

11:52 AM

@FaheemMitha Ah yes, of course. As the sticker I used to have on my computer in my old lab said "This machine has no brain. Use your own" :P

And yes, that is a problem that is very nicely solved by braces.

Andras Deak

1:13 PM

Even though I'm told it was only expected, Mozilla cuts 250 jobs, says Firefox development will be affected. Ugh.

Tim

@FaheemMitha What new stuff did I miss that you learned?

@all I was thinking about whether to look again at using Emacs like an IDE general-purposed for programming languages

I thought it would be tremendously helpful a few years ago, till I was criticized for that thought

Emacs with different plugins for different languages would still provide more coherence user interfaces than different IDEs for different languages, I guessed.

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