Re: Please verify!!
Andrew Berg bahamutzero8...@gmail.com writes: On 2/23/2012 4:43 PM, Dave Angel wrote: First thing I'd do is to disable tab logic in the editor. When you press the tab key, there's no excuse for an editor to actually put a tab in the file. It should adjust the column by adding the appropriate number of spaces. Unless, of course, you know, you actually /want/ to use tabs (the horror!). The decision whether to use tabs or spaces shouldn't be made for the novice programmer. Those two positions yo describe are in conflict. Are you referring to novice programmers – who, by any reasonable definition of “novice”, don't have an opinion on the tabs-versus-spaces indentation debate? Or are you talking about people who are experienced enough to have an opinion and expect their editor to allow them the choice? I recommend using UTF-8 always unless there's some reason not to. Likewise, I recommend using spaces for indentation always, unless there's some reason not to. The reason is the same: spaces for indentation and UTF-8 for encoding will both allow them the best chance of ignoring the issue as irrelevant, by enabling the smoothest collaboration with the vast majority of other programmers who have to work with them. And in both those issues, I think it's ludicrous to expect the novice programmer to care enough about the matter to have an opinion and select a configuration option. The editor authors should choose the best option for them as a default, and let most users sail on, happily ignorant of the flame wars they have avoided. -- \ “In the long run nothing can withstand reason and experience, | `\and the contradiction which religion offers to both is all too | _o__)palpable.” —Sigmund Freud | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On 2/24/2012 2:32 AM, Ben Finney wrote: Are you referring to novice programmers – who, by any reasonable definition of “novice”, don't have an opinion on the tabs-versus-spaces indentation debate? Or are you talking about people who are experienced enough to have an opinion and expect their editor to allow them the choice? The former. Opinion doesn't necessarily come with experience - habit will usually override any minor reason to change. My point is that one should have an opinion on it, not just be told which is better. I should clarify that I mean that in a general sense as well, since it may have come across as a bit of an overreaction. The reason is the same: spaces for indentation and UTF-8 for encoding will both allow them the best chance of ignoring the issue as irrelevant, by enabling the smoothest collaboration with the vast majority of other programmers who have to work with them. If by that, you mean that using spaces is better because it's what the majority of programmers use, and it makes things much smoother when working with others, then I agree. When working in a team, it's definitely not something to argue over. And in both those issues, I think it's ludicrous to expect the novice programmer to care enough about the matter to have an opinion and select a configuration option. The editor authors should choose the best option for them as a default, and let most users sail on, happily ignorant of the flame wars they have avoided. A valid point. I think one should have an opinion, but I can see why one would avoid the issue. -- CPython 3.2.2 | Windows NT 6.1.7601.17640 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On 23/02/2012 23:13, Manish Sharma wrote: Hi I am new to python language. On my first day, somebody told me that if any python script file is opened with any editor except python editor, the file is corrupted. Some spacing or indentation is changed and script stops working. I was opening the script file in Windows using Notepad++ but I didn't save anything and closed it. Still it was suggested to never open the python file in any other editor. Can anybody please verify this? Can opening a python script in any editor other than python editor corrupt the script? Did anybody ever face such type of issue or its just misunderstanding of the concept. I hope this group is the best place to ask this. Please reply ! :) Manish I don't think so, I have used EDIT, Notepad, Notepad++ and they all work fine. PS: What's the python editor you were advised to stick with, by the way ? -- ~Jugurtha Hadjar, -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
Andrew Berg bahamutzero8...@gmail.com wrote: Yes. However, there are many editors for various platforms that handle the different line endings just fine. In fact, Notepad is the only editor I can think of off the top of my head that has an issue. The original question was about Notepad++ which is nothing at all like Notepad. -- Duncan Booth http://kupuguy.blogspot.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On 2/24/2012 5:21 AM, Duncan Booth wrote: The original question was about Notepad++ which is nothing at all like Notepad. And I did give the OP an answer about Notepad++ specifically in another message. -- CPython 3.2.2 | Windows NT 6.1.7601.17640 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:18:18 -0600, Andrew Berg wrote: On 2/24/2012 2:32 AM, Ben Finney wrote: Are you referring to novice programmers – who, by any reasonable definition of “novice”, don't have an opinion on the tabs-versus-spaces indentation debate? Or are you talking about people who are experienced enough to have an opinion and expect their editor to allow them the choice? The former. Opinion doesn't necessarily come with experience - habit will usually override any minor reason to change. My point is that one should have an opinion on it, not just be told which is better. I should clarify that I mean that in a general sense as well, since it may have come across as a bit of an overreaction. My opinion is that we shouldn't use either tabs or spaces, but capital Zs instead, 'cos I like Zs and we don't use enough of them! Opinions need to be informed to be better than useless. By definition newbies don't have the experience to have informed opinions. You are encouraging people who lack the experience to make an informed decision to take sides in the tabs vs spaces question on the basis of... what? Gut feeling? Astrology? Feng shui? Whether they find it easy to say the word space or have a lisp and prefer tab instead? There are many times that we can't afford to sit on the fence. Lacking experience to decide between spaces and tabs, we can't just say I won't use either, or I'll use both (unless you do so in separate files). So how can we make a decision? The usual way is to listen to others, who do have the experience to make a decision (even if only imperfectly). But you've just told us off for passing on our experience/opinions to newbies, so in effect you're saying that people shouldn't learn from the experiences of others. That, I think, is a terrible philosophy. Life is too short to gain an opinion for ourselves about everything, and too difficult to sit on the fence. The right way is to encourage newbies to listen to the arguments put forth, and *then* make up their own mind, or in the absence of easily understood arguments (let's face it, many technical decisions only make sense after years of study, experience or careful reasoning) on the basis of any consensus amongst experts. Often there may be no absolutely right or wrong answers. Personally, I prefer tabs for theoretical reasons and spaces for practical ones. I think that the world would be better off if we all standardised on tabs instead of spaces, but since that's not going to happen, I can interoperate better with the mass of broken tools out there, and with other people, by using spaces. I wonder whether Windows users tend to be more sympathetic to tabs than Unix/Linux users, and if so, I wonder what if anything that means. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On 2/24/2012 6:20 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote: Opinions need to be informed to be better than useless. By definition newbies don't have the experience to have informed opinions. I thought I had implied that I meant informed opinions, but apparently not. There are many times that we can't afford to sit on the fence. Lacking experience to decide between spaces and tabs, we can't just say I won't use either, or I'll use both (unless you do so in separate files). So how can we make a decision? The usual way is to listen to others, who do have the experience to make a decision (even if only imperfectly). But you've just told us off for passing on our experience/opinions to newbies, so in effect you're saying that people shouldn't learn from the experiences of others. I don't mean that no one should ever give an opinion. Saying you prefer spaces because you've had to deal with broken editors that don't handle tabs well is quite different from saying an editor is wrong/broken if it isn't using space-tabs. Giving an opinion and presenting an argument are perfectly fine; I don't agree with calling things inherently wrong if they aren't what you prefer. I had (and have) no problem with Dave preferring spaces and giving reasons. I have a problem with him implying that editors should always use space-tabs and never real tabs, especially in the context of this thread. -- CPython 3.2.2 | Windows NT 6.1.7601.17640 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 11:20 PM, Steven D'Aprano steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info wrote: Personally, I prefer tabs for theoretical reasons and spaces for practical ones. I think that the world would be better off if we all standardised on tabs instead of spaces, but since that's not going to happen, I can interoperate better with the mass of broken tools out there, and with other people, by using spaces. At work, since we have a fairly small core of developers, we standardized on tabs - mainly because of a couple of devs who disagreed on how much indentation looked right (I'm of the opinion that 1 space is insufficient), and having tab characters in the file allows us to configure our editors differently. I'm definitely in favour of using tabs where possible, but if you can't close your environment, spaces are far safer. ChrisA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On 24/02/2012 20:41, Chris Angelico wrote: On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 11:20 PM, Steven D'Aprano steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info wrote: Personally, I prefer tabs for theoretical reasons and spaces for practical ones. I think that the world would be better off if we all standardised on tabs instead of spaces, but since that's not going to happen, I can interoperate better with the mass of broken tools out there, and with other people, by using spaces. At work, since we have a fairly small core of developers, we standardized on tabs - mainly because of a couple of devs who disagreed on how much indentation looked right (I'm of the opinion that 1 space is insufficient), and having tab characters in the file allows us to configure our editors differently. I'm definitely in favour of using tabs where possible, but if you can't close your environment, spaces are far safer. ChrisA Oo, thou sinner, fancy violating PEP 8 and standardising on tabs. OTOH if that's your standard and you stick to it fine. What I can't stand is the I've always done it this way an I ain't movin jus cos sum standard says so attitude. Yes I have seen this in real life and the person responsible should be sacked. -- Cheers. Mark Lawrence. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 11:49 AM, Mark Lawrence breamore...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: Oo, thou sinner, fancy violating PEP 8 and standardising on tabs. PEP 8 applies only to Python code, our standard is across all our languages :) But yes, I'm a horrible sinner and I like tabs. They separate the display (do you want tabs to show as four-space indent, two-centimeter indent, or fifty-pixel indent?) from the structure (this line is indented two levels). Spaces merge those. ChrisA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On 02/24/2012 08:25 PM, Chris Angelico wrote: On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 11:49 AM, Mark Lawrencebreamore...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: Oo, thou sinner, fancy violating PEP 8 and standardising on tabs. PEP 8 applies only to Python code, our standard is across all our languages :) But yes, I'm a horrible sinner and I like tabs. They separate the display (do you want tabs to show as four-space indent, two-centimeter indent, or fifty-pixel indent?) from the structure (this line is indented two levels). Spaces merge those. ChrisA If tabs were ever implemented consistently and reasonably in both an editor and a matching language, then I'd consider leaving tabs in the file. But to me, they're just a crude way to compress the file, and the space they save is no longer worth the pain they cause (I came to this conclusion 30 years ago, and have re-evaluated it dozens of times as new editors and new languages changed the rules. At that time, I had one of my developers write an editor (shipped with our MSDOS system, instead of Edlin) that implemented it.) Some time when i have a lot more time, I'll state one of (many possible) the ways that tabs could be made acceptable in a limited environment. Almost 40 years ago, I wrote an editor and assembler whose file format used a separation character between fields. I used A0 because our screens at the time ignored the high bit, so a file was sort-of readable right out of the box. And the way that the developer jumped between fields was the semi-colon key, of course, since that's the position of the skip key in the keypunch we were replacing. However, I don't intend to foist my opinions on others, just to state them as opinions. At the office, we use special comment fields at end-of-file to tell Emacs how to deal with a mixture of tabs and spaces. Code written by a dozen people over a dozen years, and nobody wanted to enforce a conversion to something common. -- DaveA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Please verify!!
Hi I am new to python language. On my first day, somebody told me that if any python script file is opened with any editor except python editor, the file is corrupted. Some spacing or indentation is changed and script stops working. I was opening the script file in Windows using Notepad++ but I didn't save anything and closed it. Still it was suggested to never open the python file in any other editor. Can anybody please verify this? Can opening a python script in any editor other than python editor corrupt the script? Did anybody ever face such type of issue or its just misunderstanding of the concept. I hope this group is the best place to ask this. Please reply ! :) Manish -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
2012/2/23 Manish Sharma manish2...@gmail.com Hi I am new to python language. On my first day, somebody told me that if any python script file is opened with any editor except python editor, the file is corrupted. Some spacing or indentation is changed and script stops working. I was opening the script file in Windows using Notepad++ but I didn't save anything and closed it. Still it was suggested to never open the python file in any other editor. Can anybody please verify this? Can opening a python script in any editor other than python editor corrupt the script? Did anybody ever face such type of issue or its just misunderstanding of the concept. There is compatibility issue with line ending in Windows vs other OS that's all I'm aware of. Amirouche -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
They are telling you not to switch between editors that use tabs as tabs and ones that use spaces as tabs. Python gets all wonky. No big, use one editor or have your preferred editor highlight your non-preferred whitespace. FWIW, I use spaces. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 2:22 PM, Amirouche Boubekki amirouche.boube...@gmail.com wrote: 2012/2/23 Manish Sharma manish2...@gmail.com Hi I am new to python language. On my first day, somebody told me that if any python script file is opened with any editor except python editor, the file is corrupted. Some spacing or indentation is changed and script stops working. I was opening the script file in Windows using Notepad++ but I didn't save anything and closed it. Still it was suggested to never open the python file in any other editor. Can anybody please verify this? Can opening a python script in any editor other than python editor corrupt the script? Did anybody ever face such type of issue or its just misunderstanding of the concept. There is compatibility issue with line ending in Windows vs other OS that's all I'm aware of. The only issues I can think of off the top of my head would be line endings and indentation (tabs vs spaces, number of spaces for one level). The second would just require care to avoid issues to make sure you match the style guides for the files you are working on (the Python standard is 4 spaces, I believe). The first could be a silent issue with some editors and some versions of Python if crossing between Windows, Linux, and Mac, however most software (including Python) will now convert between the different forms automatically, and Notepad++ is good about its handling - it will create new newlines in the format of the file, if such can be determined. Amirouche -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On 02/23/2012 05:13 PM, Manish Sharma wrote: Hi I am new to python language. On my first day, somebody told me that if any python script file is opened with any editor except python editor, the file is corrupted. Some spacing or indentation is changed and script stops working. I was opening the script file in Windows using Notepad++ but I didn't save anything and closed it. Still it was suggested to never open the python file in any other editor. Can anybody please verify this? Can opening a python script in any editor other than python editor corrupt the script? Did anybody ever face such type of issue or its just misunderstanding of the concept. I hope this group is the best place to ask this. Please reply ! :) Manish That is nonsense. I've used at least a dozen text editors, from Windows Notepad to emacs on Linux. And since I know of no program called python editor, I'm sure none of them was that one. Of course, there are editors that are broken, or can be configured to be broken. I certainly wouldn't try wordpad, even in text mode. But a good editor with a good configuration can be much nicer to use than Notepad. First thing I'd do is to disable tab logic in the editor. When you press the tab key, there's no excuse for an editor to actually put a tab in the file. It should adjust the column by adding the appropriate number of spaces. The main place you get in trouble is when a file has tabs in some lines, and uses spaces for indenting on other lines. Since tabs are not interpreted the same way in various utilities, it's just better not to use them at all. As Amirouche has pointed out, line endings can be inconsistent between different operating systems, and not all editors can handle the differences. But the python compiler/interpreter doesn't care about which line ending is used. One other issue could be files that have non-ASCII characters. Since a text file has no standard way to indicate what format it uses (utf8, ucs2, or dozens of extended ASCII encodings), another editor might not deal with it correctly. There is a standard way to indicate to Python how to interpret non-ascii characters, so if you either 1) always use ASCII1 2) always use the same character encoding, or 3) have your editor look for the declaration and honor it, you'd have no trouble. If these problems do occur, they'll be pretty easy to spot. And you can always revert to an earlier version, by using your revision control system. Enabling one of those is about as important as choosing your editor. -- DaveA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
Wasn't supposed to be private, just something went funky with gmail when i sent it out, oddly enough On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 8:32 PM, Dave Angel d...@davea.name wrote: On 02/23/2012 07:15 PM, Joshua Miller wrote: When he/she said python editor i'm sure they meant IDLE which in some cases is the worst ide to use. Some ide's do mess with python files you just have to make sure to change their settings to accomadate python. Otherwise no it's a better idea to use something other than IDLE. For windows generally people use eclipse with the pydev extension, pyscripter, or the several other IDE's that are known with a little help not to do what you are describing ;) I can't argue with anything you say here. But you shouldn't have sent it privately, as this is a public list. And please don't top-post So I'm forwarding it to the list. -- DaveA -- ~ Josh Miller A young guy learning to program and develop websites all while still in school -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On 2/23/2012 4:43 PM, Dave Angel wrote: First thing I'd do is to disable tab logic in the editor. When you press the tab key, there's no excuse for an editor to actually put a tab in the file. It should adjust the column by adding the appropriate number of spaces. Unless, of course, you know, you actually /want/ to use tabs (the horror!). The decision whether to use tabs or spaces shouldn't be made for the novice programmer. Make an argument, explain the advantages/disadvantages, whatever, but don't state your opinion like it's fact. Even worse, you brought it up in the context of editor issues, making it sound like using tabs is a common source of problems. Much of it is personal preference (I could give objective reasons in support of tabs in Python, but I don't intend to start the whole spaces vs. tabs discussion again). The main place you get in trouble is when a file has tabs in some lines, and uses spaces for indenting on other lines. I wouldn't call it the main problem, but yes, that happens. It's not terribly difficult to convert all indentation to tabs or spaces (unless the number of spaces used to indent is inconsistent). As Amirouche has pointed out, line endings can be inconsistent between different operating systems, and not all editors can handle the differences. But the python compiler/interpreter doesn't care about which line ending is used. Yes. However, there are many editors for various platforms that handle the different line endings just fine. In fact, Notepad is the only editor I can think of off the top of my head that has an issue. One other issue could be files that have non-ASCII characters. Since a text file has no standard way to indicate what format it uses (utf8, ucs2, or dozens of extended ASCII encodings), another editor might not deal with it correctly. There is a standard way to indicate to Python how to interpret non-ascii characters, so if you either 1) always use ASCII1 2) always use the same character encoding, or 3) have your editor look for the declaration and honor it, you'd have no trouble. I recommend using UTF-8 always unless there's some reason not to. If these problems do occur, they'll be pretty easy to spot. And you can always revert to an earlier version, by using your revision control system. Enabling one of those is about as important as choosing your editor. I don't think you can really go wrong outside of Git, Bazaar, or Mercurial. Which of those 3 is best is mainly personal preference. CVS/SVN should be considered legacy and not suitable for new projects. -- CPython 3.2.2 | Windows NT 6.1.7601.17640 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
Hi All, Thanks a ton for your replies! Still my question is what if I open the file and dont make any changes to it and close it again? Can it be possible just by doing these steps add indentation to lines? I am not changing the file prefrences to open it always with notepad++. Opening it once only. On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 6:08 AM, Jason Friedman ja...@powerpull.net wrote: Hi I am new to python language. On my first day, somebody told me that if any python script file is opened with any editor except python editor, the file is corrupted. Some spacing or indentation is changed and script stops working. I was opening the script file in Windows using Notepad++ but I didn't save anything and closed it. Still it was suggested to never open the python file in any other editor. It is possible that the OP is not aware of that Python is space sensitive, unlike most(?) programming languages. for i in range(5): print(Hello.) print(Goodbye.) will not run because the indentation (leading spaces) on the third line is incorrect. It must instead line up with the second line. A single tab is equivalent to a single space as far as Python is concerned, but your eyes will report a difference and editors that substitute one for the other can cause, after saving, code that was formerly working to not work (and, I suppose, the reverse). Make sure to read the tutorial at http://python.org (which is unfortunately down at this moment (http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/python.org)). -- - Thanks Regards Manish Kumar | Mob: +91-9911635906 | manish2...@gmail.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Please verify!!
On 2/24/2012 1:11 AM, Manish Sharma wrote: Still my question is what if I open the file and dont make any changes to it and close it again? Can it be possible just by doing these steps add indentation to lines? I am not changing the file prefrences to open it always with notepad++. Opening it once only. Notepad++ won't change line endings or indentation unless you tell it to. In any case, it will indicate when a file has been changed (the little blue disk icon in the file's tab will turn red). -- CPython 3.2.2 | Windows NT 6.1.7601.17640 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
