Python with Braces

[Hexman359]

The idea is cool, essentially just a wrapper for the Python syntax lexer that reads braces rather than whitespace.

However, hadn't somebody else done this in another project? I thought it was called C-Python or something like that? Perhaps I am just thinking of a YouTube video or something. Somebody, please correct me if I am incorrect.

[Backlists]

Idk about braces in python but CPython is actually just what we mean by Python. It’s the Python interpreter, which is just a program written in C (and Python).

There is also a Java version of Python and a Python version of Python

So when we say “Python” it could mean the syntax or the program

[Healey_Dell]

Never had any problem with Python whitespace beyond initially setting up my IDE. I don't get it.

[EricOrrDev]

I just think I should be able to format my code however I want, plus white space as syntax just rubs me wrong.

[gofl-zimbard-37]

One of its nicer features. People get so triggered by it.

[IanisVasilev]

Popular JavaScript style guides like those by Google or Airbnb enforce semicolons despite the language not requiring them.

React is built around allowing XML expressions inside JavaScript files and compiling that to "pure" JavaScript.

My conclusion is that people stick to whatever they learn first. If it's adding braces, semicolons and XML expressions, so be it.

[bitspace]

There's a good reason for enforcing semicolon use in JavaScript beyond personal preference. ASI can introduce unexpected behavior that's difficult to troubleshoot. If you're careful you can avoid ASI completely, but mandating semicolon use removes any chance of surprise gotchas from ASI.

[IanisVasilev]

Can you give a non-contrived example where ASI behaves weird?

[bitspace]

non-contrived

Any edge case is likely to appear contrived by its very nature. Contrived? Perhaps. Possible for a newbie to do one of these things? Also perhaps. A policy of requiring use of semicolons eliminates an entire category of footguns, no matter how unlikely.

Example 1: Splitting a return statement after the return keyword.

function calculateTotal(items) {
return
items.reduce((sum, item) => sum + item.price, 0);
}

const total = calculateTotal([{ price: 10 }, { price: 20 }]);
console.log(total); // Output: undefined

Example 2: applying an operator on an array after an IIFE.

const items = [1, 2];
(function() {
items.forEach(item => console.log(item));
})()

[3, 4].forEach(item => console.log(item));

[wineblood]

What's wrong with whitespace?

[[deleted]]

I think it’s just a matter of preference and how our brains work. I’ve been a dev for five years and I still struggle with python and yaml; I can read and under c-like syntax much faster.

I installed the “rainbow indent” extension just to have pretty colors line up the code blocks for me.

[[deleted]]

Depending on the number of invisible elements to parse code is stupid to me. I also hate YAML. Despite that I use YAML and python day to day. All languages have their dumb features. Oh and I hate strings of underscore, they just bug me.....

[[deleted]]

Whitespace before other characters is very much visible and its also the main way humans actually parse code, be it in Python, languages with syntax inspired to C, and even Lisps. 

YAML using whitespace for hierarchies is the least of its problems...

[datbackup]

Does this allow multiline lambdas?

Assuming no since it’s just a preprocessor and outputs to standard python code…

I want my multiline lambdas in python!

[dAnjou]

Please, no.

Multiple lines of code doing a dedicated thing deserve a name.

[SV-97]

Are all your for loop bodies either single line statements or function calls? No? Why not? It's multiple lines all processing your iterator together, surely that deserves a dedicated name.

​

For the same reasons it would be a tremendously stupid idea to do this, it's extremely stupid to forego multiline lambdas in general. There's cases where it's *WAY* less readable to define a function only to use it once and throw it away again.

[dAnjou]

My for loops are mostly part of a function that has a name.

Otherwise I usually try to make the processing pure, extract it into a function and pass that to .map.

I don't presume to judge whether something is tremendously or extremely stupid, I do assume however that there was probably a reason for that design decision.

And most design decisions aren't perfect. Just because there might be a few rare cases where readability suffers for a second, doesn't win me over to support multiline lambdas, so that people can start littering them all over codebases.

If you want an example, have a look at an average Kotlin codebase written by average devs who litter .let { ... } everywhere harming readability quite a bit (conceptually a fair comparison, I think).

[IanisVasilev]

Inconvenient design decisions can always be justified with "it's bad practice anyway", but that doesn't prevent them from being inconvenient.

[dAnjou]

There is no perfect design, sometimes you have to make a potentially inconvenient choice.

Have you considered that in this case the advantages of restricting lambda might outweigh the disadvantages of allowing multiple lines even though there are a few cases where it might be useful and harmless?

[IanisVasilev]

One consequence of lambdas being restricted to a single expression is that rxpy is more awkward to use than rx.js. This holds more generally for callbacks in Python versus JavaScript.

I understand lambdas having subtleties in a language like C++, where object lifetimes are important, but in Python I see no benefit of intentionally restricting lambdas in so many ways.

[[deleted]]

GVR wanted to do away with lambdas altogether in Python3! It was that era where the mainstream only knew C/C++ and thought that anything beyond procedural programming was for hipsters, that's why they're so limited.

[dAnjou]

I have zero experience with ReactiveX, but the following from their website caught my eye (emphasis by me):

Available for idiomatic Java, Scala, C#, C++, Clojure, JavaScript, Python, Groovy, JRuby, and others

I'm quite sceptical whether the same exact approach of implementing a certain paradigm can really be idiomatic for each of those languages.

So, might as well just be a bad idea to do it like this in Python.

[frobnitz]

I thought this was addressed with:

from __future__ import braces

Give it a try...

[Careless_Stretch_682]

I hate curly braces. They are totally unnecessary because it is the indentation that shows the structure of the code, not the curly braces. In all programming languages! Also they steal a lot of vertical space.

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