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From: Alejandro Colomar <alx.manpages@gmail.com>
To: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] Re: [TULSA] Re: python
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2023 19:29:00 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <8e45b8b1-cf3c-e47c-bd15-d19a2ae5cc1d@gmail.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <202308031657.373GvVvW008640@ultimate.com>

On 2023-08-03 18:57, Phil Budne wrote:
> On the subject of "no printf", there is not one, not two, but THREE
> ways to format strings, easily compounded with print:
> 
> 	print("%s %s" % ("hello", "world"))
> 	print("{1} {two}".format("hello", two="world"))
> 	print(f"{greeting} {populace}")
> 
> I'm pretty sure the last method (which initially made me vomit, due to
> violating my hardwired ideas about complicating the lexer, as if it
> can even be thought of as a separate layer), BUT I Seem To Recall that
> it allows a class to implement a formatting method, which may (or may
> not) work for complex numbers.

Actually, there's no need to move away from printf(3) for customization.
glibc provides register_printf_specifier(3), register_printf_modifier(3),
and register_printf_modifier(3), with which you can register %S for
printing your very nice struct.  You can even register modifiers, such as
%vS for printing your structure in a different manner.

Of course, those APIs are not portable, but that's a matter of porting
them; you don't need to invent a completely new formatted print variant
just to do that.

How does one even specify the equivalent of "%+'0#8.5f" in the new {}
formats??

Of course, there may be reasons to move away from printf(3): C++ seems
to have a faster thing with std:format (or so they claim; I didn't try
it).  But if speed is not a problem, I'd keep the good ol' syntax that
everybody knows.  No need to make everybody learn a "cool" new print
function, that probably won't be as tunable as printf(3) is.

Another thing is type safety.  printf(3) is actually type-safe.  At least
as long as you use powerful compilers that can diagnose misuses of
printf-like APIs.  GCC provides [[gnu::format()]] for a reason.  And if
you customize printf with your own formats, Clang has tools for checking
those too.

> 
> Type "hinting" has been mentioned: again, it's almost like a whole new
> version of the language.  You need to pick a type checker, and likely
> turn up the knobs to achieve any actual safety, and then deal with the
> fact that not all packages supply hints out of the box.  It kind of
> offers the desert-topping/floor-wax dichotomy: You can easily/quickly
> write small programs with dynamic typing for quick one-offs, AND write
> better armored code for libraries & production code.
> 
> On tabs vs spaces: Python3 forbids mixing them.  Again, fascist, but
> "it's for your own good".
> 
> So yes, Python sucks, but I continue using it, and unlike sendmail
> (which I continue to run, as I have a 200+ line .mc file it would take
> me at LEAST a week to replicate the effects of in another MTA), I
> don't tell people Python is unsuitable at any speed.
> 
> I'd probably happily write Go or Rust, given a situation (existing
> project/program) where its use was inevitable, and I DO have a program
> I think is a good candidate for rewriting in Go, but on the whole,
> it's a useful tool for many kinds of programmers, and in many
> situations, which I think is somewhat remarkable.

I'll go a little step further, and claim that newlines being significant
is another bad decission.  It's one of the things I dislike from
languages, including sh(1).  My scripts end up having a lot of escaped
newlines, because I find the pipe to be more readable and pleasant as

foo \
| bar

rather than

foo |
bar

While I can forgive that in the shell, because interactive mode is as
important as scripts, I can't do the same with Go.  Go is a programming
language, and having newlines be significant is nonsense.  Saving from
typing ;s is a similar excuse that the one python used for saving typing
{}s.  And the consequence is that due to that fascist rule of go, I
can't put the opening brace of a function declaration in a new line; it
must be sticked to the same line as the function declarator.

I never enjoyed Go, and that was the main reason.  In any case, I never
found a need for it.  Most (all?) of what I do can be done with sh(1)
or C.

Alex

  parent reply	other threads:[~2023-08-03 17:29 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 78+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2023-07-30 18:22 [TUHS] Re: Cool talk on Unix and Sendmail history, by Eric Allman Norman Wilson
2023-07-30 21:43 ` Rob Pike
2023-07-30 23:34   ` George Michaelson
2023-07-30 23:59     ` Erik E. Fair
2023-07-31  0:26       ` Warner Losh
2023-07-31 22:57         ` Grant Taylor via TUHS
2023-07-31 23:05           ` Warner Losh
2023-08-01  2:45             ` Grant Taylor via TUHS
2023-08-01  1:51         ` Niklas Karlsson
2023-08-01  2:47           ` Grant Taylor via TUHS
2023-08-01  3:20           ` Theodore Ts'o
2023-07-31  0:41       ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-08-01  9:22       ` Marc Donner
2023-08-01 10:58         ` Erik E. Fair
2023-08-02  0:37           ` Dave Horsfall
2023-08-02 14:52             ` Ron Natalie
2023-08-02 21:14               ` Grant Taylor via TUHS
2023-08-02 22:20                 ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-08-02 22:37                   ` Warner Losh
2023-08-02 23:49                   ` Rich Salz
2023-08-03  0:51                     ` [TUHS] Re: python Larry McVoy
2023-08-03  1:20                       ` George Michaelson
2023-08-03  2:53                         ` Bakul Shah
2023-08-03  2:55                         ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-08-03  3:24                         ` George Michaelson
2023-08-03  3:32                           ` Warner Losh
2023-08-03  3:55                           ` Bakul Shah
2023-08-03  8:32                             ` Rob Pike
2023-08-03 14:19                               ` Bakul Shah
2023-08-03 14:56                                 ` Dan Halbert
2023-08-03 15:20                                   ` will.senn
2023-08-03 22:05                                     ` Dan Cross
2023-08-04  0:24                                       ` John Cowan
2023-08-04 15:17                                         ` Dan Cross
2023-08-05  4:44                                       ` Bakul Shah
2023-08-03 15:41                                 ` John Cowan
2023-08-03  2:07                       ` Clem Cole
2023-08-03  2:21                         ` Pete Wright via TUHS
2023-08-03  2:56                           ` Warner Losh
2023-08-03 12:36                         ` Mike Markowski
2023-08-03 13:29                           ` Rob Pike
2023-08-03 15:24                             ` emanuel stiebler
2023-08-03 15:39                               ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2023-08-04  1:01                             ` Larry McVoy
2023-08-04  1:28                               ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-08-04  1:58                                 ` Adam Thornton
2023-08-04 15:04                                   ` Dan Cross
2023-08-04 15:10                                     ` Larry McVoy
2023-08-03 16:57                         ` [TUHS] Re: [TULSA] " Phil Budne
2023-08-03 17:00                           ` Rich Salz
2023-08-03 20:35                             ` [TUHS] Split addressing (I/D) space (inspired by the death of the python... thread) Will Senn
2023-08-03 21:05                               ` [TUHS] " Kenneth Goodwin
2023-08-03 21:10                                 ` Ronald Natalie
2023-08-03 21:16                                   ` Warner Losh
2023-08-03 21:24                                     ` Ronald Natalie
2023-08-03 22:34                                   ` Kenneth Goodwin
2023-08-03 21:05                               ` Ronald Natalie
2023-08-03 21:44                               ` Clem Cole
2023-08-03 22:08                                 ` Will Senn
2023-08-03 22:54                                   ` Clem Cole
2023-08-03 23:08                                     ` Dave Horsfall
2023-08-03 23:15                                     ` Clem Cole
2023-08-04  0:38                                     ` John Cowan
2023-08-03 17:29                           ` Alejandro Colomar [this message]
2023-08-03 17:51                             ` [TUHS] Re: [TULSA] Re: python John Cowan
2023-08-03 18:05                               ` Alejandro Colomar
2023-08-03 21:29                                 ` Dan Cross
2023-08-03 23:55                                   ` [TUHS] printf (was: python) Alejandro Colomar
2023-08-04 16:06                                     ` [TUHS] " Dan Cross
2023-08-04 16:57                                       ` Alejandro Colomar
2023-08-04 21:16                                         ` Dan Cross
2023-08-03 21:02                           ` [TUHS] Re: [TULSA] Re: python Steffen Nurpmeso
2023-08-03 23:47                           ` Larry McVoy
2023-08-03 23:54                             ` Will Senn
2023-08-04 19:20                         ` [TUHS] " Ed Bradford
2023-08-04 19:47                           ` Larry McVoy
2023-08-05  5:40                             ` Ed Bradford
2023-08-02 23:33               ` [TUHS] Re: Cool talk on Unix and Sendmail history, by Eric Allman Dave Horsfall

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