Re: [Numpy-discussion] adding a .M attribute to the array.

[Konrad H. <hi...@cn...>]

"John J. Lee" <jj...@po...> writes:

> (Konrad also complains about Perl's nasty syntax.  This is frequently
> complained about, but do you really think the syntax is the problem --
> surely it's Perl's horribly complicated semantics that is the real issue?
> The syntax is just inconvenient, in comparison at least.  Sorry, a bit
> OT...)

It's both, of course. I don't really wish to decide which is worse,
especially not because I'd have to read more Perl code to reach such a
decision ;-)

But syntax is an issue for readability. There are some symbols that
are generally used as operators in computer languages, and I think
Python uses all of them already. Moreover, the general semantics are
quite uniform as well: * stands for multiplication, for example,
although the details of what multiplication means can vary.

Symbols like @ are not operators everywhere, and where they are there
is no uniform meaning attached to them, so they create confusion.
As a test, take a Python program and replace all * by @. It does
look weird.

Konrad.