[bmitc]

> these people need to roll up their sleeves and just learn the damn language

You really have no choice but to do that. But the critique here is that some languages make this hard. And some languages, like Python, appear deceptively simple and consistent, when they are anything but. And as I pointed out, these decisions were not really required or designed to solve certain problems. They just kind of came about in Python's development, one historically and intentionally ignorant of pre-existing languages and their good ideas.

When everybody just says "learn the language" or "there's list comprehensions" or "there's for loops", then why does the [...]*n syntax exist? What problems is it solving that require the confusion that it generates?

[mapreduce]

> What problems is it solving that require the confusion that it generates?

I think I answered that already. It keeps the language spec consistent and simpler.

Imagine the complexity you have to add to the language spec to say that when we write [] we deal with the reference to this list except in the multiplication syntax a = [[]] * 5 where the inner [] is not a reference to the list but the list value! Such special case will make the language both inconsistent and harder to understand for experienced programmers.

[bmitc]

I'm asking what makes introducing the multiplication syntax worth it in the first place.

[mapreduce]

Ah! Misunderstood your original comment. My apologies! Yes, I am with you when you question the usefulness of the multiplication syntax.

I prefer simplicity and consistency in a programming language grammar, syntax and semantics as I advocated above. So yes I'd be happy to lose that multiplication syntax. It is not worth it.