On 01/20/2014 01:19 AM, Keith Winston wrote:
On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 3:50 PM, Alan Gauld <alan.ga...@btinternet.com> wrote:
How would Python know whether you want find for gettext, mmap, str,
xml.etree.ElementTree.Element or xml.etree.ElementTree.ElementTree?
Absolutely, but a newbie doesn't even guess that more than one find would
exist. Or even that there would need to be more than one.
That's exactly it. I'm just getting to the point of being able to
understand how much I don't know, and (I'm only a little embarrassed
to admit) Alan's empty-string example was an "ah-ha" moment for me. I
expect Help will be a great deal more useful now (of course, as I type
that I realize I could have used the class name, help(str.find),
instead of an impromptu instance. Another little ah-ha). And of
course, the instant I understood all that, the point that Mark made
became obvious. But I didn't see it before.
Side note, rather OT:
It is apparently very hard to share the perspective of novices once one gets
used to features to the point they have become easy. It seems, in fact, often
much harder for programmers than other people (I suspect this is because
programmers, or "geeks", are often more "autistic" so to say). Obviously, a
talented footballer (soccer) does not consider juggling with a ball (using only
feet/head) easy for novices!
Some programmers, of which I consider they have a "pedagogic spirit",
nevertheless are obviously skilled in that, whatever their expertise level. I
think this is just "normal" human skill (sociability, in fact) but our way of
life alters or distorts it.
Denis
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