From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,60e2922351e0e780 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-11-07 12:31:47 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: 18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Clause "with and use" Date: 7 Nov 2003 12:31:46 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: <3FA50083.10709@noplace.com> <3FA777E9.4030605@noplace.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.194.87.148 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1068237107 11470 127.0.0.1 (7 Nov 2003 20:31:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 20:31:47 +0000 (UTC) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2230 Date: 2003-11-07T12:31:46-08:00 List-Id: "Martin Dowie" wrote in message news:... > "Russ" <18k11tm001@sneakemail.com> wrote in message > news:bebbba07.0311061052.772a095@posting.google.com... > > If you honestly find "+=" to be "unreadable," then I'd say that, yes, > > you are indeed an idiot. I certainly would never hire a programmer who > > has to grapple with the meaning of "+=". For Pete's sake, I have real > > work to do. Would you hire such a person? If so, I can't imagine how > > you could get any significant amount of work done. Go ask anyone who > > hires programmers, and ask them if they would hire anyone who > > struggles with the meaning of "+=". Having said that, I don't think > > for a second that anyone here *really* has trouble understanding "+=". > > That means that I don't really consider you idiots, I am just baffled > > as to why you insist on portraying yourselves as such. Now, if you > > quote me on this, please keep this entire paragraph intact. > > I have noticed that although such short forms are available to Python > users (another language I quite like...), I've yet to find one occasion > when it has actually been used. And that's largely from browsing from > the 'official' Python homepage and its 'de-facto' standard libraries. > > So why don't they use it? I don't no for sure but one of the explicit > aims of Python was to promote readability. I will reply a second time to this post so that I may clarify a couple of points. As I wrote the first time, "+=" was introduced in Python only relatively recently, which explains why it does not appear much in the libraries. > Perhaps, Russ, you could instil a vigorous debate over at c.l.p. > and ask them why they are being so 'idiotic'? ;-) Well, I see your little ";-)", so I realize that you are not exhibiting overt hostility. Nevertheless, it is clear to me that you and others have misconstrued what I wrote about idiots and idiocy. I never called anyone an idiot for not using "+=" (as your statement above implies), nor did I ever call anyone an idiot for opposing augmented assignment operators in Ada. As far as I can recall, all I said is that any professional programmer who has difficulty grasping the concept of "+=", or who considers it "unreadable," must be an idiot. I will add that I don't think anyone who is intelligent enough to become a professional programmer could possibly fall into that category. Imagine you were interviewing a programmer for a job, and he mentioned that he really has difficulty reading and understanding the meaning of "+=". What would you think? Would you hire the guy? Imagine a journalist is applying for a job with the local newspaper. Now imagine that, in the course of the interview, he says, "I really have trouble with some vowels. I can handle a, e, and i, but o and u throw me for a loop. And y is just completely unreadable!" Do you suppose he would get the job? Well, that's comparable to a professional programmer who has problems understanding "+=". > So, Russ, have read AI-318? Do you still think that "+=",etc is > still necessary, now there is a mechanism to avoid that extra deep > copy for things like matrices/vectors? I started to read it, but it's a bit too technical for me. Too many of those wierd vowels. 8^) I don't know if it solves the problem of efficient vector/matrix operations, but it if does, it sure looks a lot more complicated to me than "+=" (or ":+"). If you have time, I would appreciate an example of how it would be used for matrix addition, for example. Just the calling statement using an overloaded "+" will be sufficient.