[SeekingMeaning]

Genuinely curious, what makes Python look more like pseudocode? The use of colons?

Regardless, I’ve always thought that Ruby is more like pseudocode because with Ruby, I’m able to worry less about syntax and more about what I’m trying to do. Maybe it’s just me?

[pansa]

> Genuinely curious, what makes Python look more like pseudocode? The use of colons?

I used to think it was significant indentation, but if you look at the pseudocode on e.g. Wikipedia, there is no significant preference for either whitespace or begin/end.

Therefore, it’s probably things like `if value in my_map` vs `if my_map.contains(value)` and `[x * 2 for x in my_list]` vs `my_list.map(x -> x * 2)`.

[nnq]

- `if value in my_map` is a one off special case - ugly, nasty, hard to figure out how to extend it (what if I invented my_map to have special logic for `in` ...I need to search the docs for a magic method called for that operator ...if I even know for what keywords to search, ugh)

- `if my_map.contains(value)` is nice and consistent, easy to search for the code of the .contains method and figure out what it does

- `[x * 2 for x in my_list]` another ugly special case syntax, instead of general purpose higher order functions, even in Python while a `.map` method could've been easily added to dictionaries too, we had to wait years (decades?) for dictionary comprehensions to land in the language, and it's another damn special syntax one has to remember. ugh! - a sane solution not involving higher order functions usage would've been to make everything in the language an expression and have `for ...` expressions return lists or dictionaries or sets, still better than the fugly "list comprehension", I really can't comprehend why people like them

- `my_list.map(x -> x * 2)` nice, clean, and general. If I work with a weirder list like thingy and want to see the logic of mapping, I can easily jump to the definition of it's `.map` method

Most pseudocode is ugly and ambiguous and actually hard to read without special context from the text around it because you're never sure what something actually means, can't easily "jump to its implementation code and read it". Same like natural language, hard to non-ambiguously understand and ugly as hell in technical context where math and diagrams work 1000x times better.

I can't understand why people who are trained in math, physics and/or other sciences would ever choose something just because it "looks more like pseudocode"... To me pseudocode rhymes with... pseudoscience! It's never what you want when you can choose something better.

[tigershark]

List comprehension in python it’s absolutely hideous. It’s reversed and you have to define first the function and after where it is applied. The code completion it’s completely broken in that way since it has no idea on which elements you are operating. And also are you saying that “list.include? 2” doesn’t look more like English than “2 in list”?

[SeekingMeaning]

Ah, yeah. In that regard, I agree, Ruby could use some improvement.