[ericjmorey]

This is a good description of my problems with Python when it was first introduced to me. Although, "hello world" didn't require installation of anything (Python has been pre-installed in Ubuntu for a while now), the mess and confusion and incompatibilities and irreproducibilities were quickly run up against and each "solution" was more opaque and flippantly suggested that I couldn't figured that programming wasn't for me. I'm glad I persisted past it. The juxtaposition between hearing that "Python is so easy and wonderful" and my experience made me look for answers. And the answer, it seems, is that people don't care. The vast majority just keep installing everything until it works and don't mind that they initially don't know what's going on (and oftentimes never find out). The few that do mind are on opposite edges of a canyon of experience.

Thank you for letting me rant over this.