More and more I’m seeing people disparage Python over the whitespace issue. What’s most disconcerting is when the same group embraces YAML, Haml, and Sass, because for some reason it’s okay if they have significant whitespace.
I don’t buy it. Yes, when you’re new to it, it’s frustrating to have bugs that are only the result of whitespace, or lack thereof. But if you’re new to a language, syntax errors are just something you learn by making them; I daresay that everyone learned to end lines with a semi-colon in [insert appropriate language here] just by forgetting it a few times.
On top of that, I’ve yet to see anyone who doesn’t prefer clear, well indented code, to sloppy hard-to-read code.
I like to use a variety of languages, and even though Python’s not something I use very much right now, I fully expect to use it in the future, and would do so happily. It’s a great language.
So what’s the big deal with whitespace?
(I almost called this post “All Whitespace Is Significant”, planning to point out you at least need to put a single space between tokens so that your code can be parsed, but I figured the flames telling me I didn’t understand “significant whitespace” wouldn’t be worth it… ;) )
Having used python for a few years now, I rarely have problems with whitespace. In fact, most of my code in other languages now have Pythonic use of whitespace - it just makes things easier to read.
Exactly. I also tend to indent code religiously regardless of the language I’m using. I’m even finicky about html that way; it just makes things easier to find, parse, etc.