OT: The Straight Dope

[Jeff Bauer]

As a longtime reader (20+ years) of Cecil Adams'
"Straight Dope" columns, I was amused to find a
brief mention of Python programming in today's
response to the following question.

"What's the 'Scroll Lock' key on my computer for?"

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mscrolllock.html

"However, programmers, being loath to let extraneous
keys sit unused on a keyboard, have found use for
[backquote] as an operator in the LISP and Python
programming languages."

if-tim-is-sherlock-then-cecil-must-be-mycroft-ly y'rs,

Jeff Bauer
Rubicon Research

 

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

As a longtime reader (20+ years) of Cecil Adams'
"Straight Dope" columns, I was amused to find a
brief mention of Python programming in today's
response to the following question.

"What's the 'Scroll Lock' key on my computer for?"

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mscrolllock.html

"However, programmers, being loath to let extraneous
keys sit unused on a keyboard, have found use for
[backquote] as an operator in the LISP and Python
programming languages."

if-tim-is-sherlock-then-cecil-must-be-mycroft-ly y'rs,

It might have something to do with the CMU Common Lisp compiler, also
named Python ?

Just my 2 cents...
Bruno

 

[Andrew Dalke]

Bruno Desthuilliers:

It might have something to do with the CMU Common Lisp compiler, also
named Python ?

No. Backticks are another way of doing repr. Few use it.

Andrew
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Bruno Desthuilliers:



No. Backticks are another way of doing repr. Few use it.



'Hello'

Woops. I forgot this...
as you say : '"Few use it." !-)

Bruno

 

[Nick Vargish]

if-tim-is-sherlock-then-cecil-must-be-mycroft-ly y'rs,

Just a correction; the SD article quoted in the previous post was
written by a Staff Reporter ("Una Persson"), not the exalted
Cecil Adams himself.

I did think it was funny that Python was mentioned, but Perl was
slighted -- backticks are much more common in Perl code than in
Python code, at least in my experience.

Nick

 

[Greg Ewing (using news.cis.dfn.de)]

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mscrolllock.html

"However, programmers, being loath to let extraneous
keys sit unused on a keyboard, have found use for
[backquote] as an operator in the LISP and Python
programming languages."

Although in Python, it's now sitting there as an
almost-unused operator, which isn't much better a
fate.

I propose we rescue "`" from this sadly neglected status
and use it for the matrix multiplication operator that
was much sought after in certain circles a while back...

 

[Charles Richmond]

Just a correction; the SD article quoted in the previous post was
written by a Staff Reporter ("Una Persson"), not the exalted
Cecil Adams himself.

I did think it was funny that Python was mentioned, but Perl was
slighted -- backticks are much more common in Perl code than in
Python code, at least in my experience.

Hey, the C-shell in UNIX uses backquote also... I do *not*
know about bash, ksh, or sh.

 

[Nick Vargish]

Hey, the C-shell in UNIX uses backquote also... I do *not*
know about bash, ksh, or sh.

I believe the Bourne shell is where the backticks as "execute string
and replace with output" began. BTW, you should learn a Bourne shell
(I like zsh, but bash is okay, ksh and sh are a little basic for
interactive use) -- very few system scripts are written in C-shell. In
fact, C-shell programming generally seems to be deprecated in most
environments.

Nick

 

[Cameron Laird]

.
.
.

interactive use) -- very few system scripts are written in C-shell. In
fact, C-shell programming generally seems to be deprecated in most
environments.

.
.
.
<URL: http://frmb.org/csh_whynot.html > canonically
summarizes why csh programming is naughty and ener-
vating.

 

[joe]

.
<URL: http://frmb.org/csh_whynot.html > canonically
summarizes why csh programming is naughty and ener-
vating.

Also,

http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/CshTop10.txt
http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Csh.html#uh-0
Joe

 

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

Nick Vargish fed this fish to the penguins on Monday 27 October 2003
09:47 am:

interactive use) -- very few system scripts are written in C-shell. In
fact, C-shell programming generally seems to be deprecated in most
environments.

Though, if I may drag in some decade old history, tcsh was quite
comfortable to someone used to the Amiga's CLI -- no experience with
actual scripting, but at the interactive level when I had a shell
account with Netcom, using tcsh minimized confusion between the two
systems.


--

 

[Nick Vargish]

Though, if I may drag in some decade old history, tcsh was quite
comfortable to someone used to the Amiga's CLI -- no experience with
actual scripting, but at the interactive level when I had a shell
account with Netcom, using tcsh minimized confusion between the two
systems.

Right, tcsh wasn't bad as an interactive shell; until zsh showed up,
it was probably the best choice since it had a number of features that
sh lacked (filename completion being the big one, but the history
facilities were handy too).

The papers cited by other posters, which I was too lazy to google for,
are mostly arguments against programming in (t)csh.

It's nice to be able to write off-the-cuff scripts on the command line
in the same language you write your system admin scripts in. That's
why zsh and bash are so great -- all the interactive features of tcsh
(and more!) in a regular and sane Bourne syntax.

Nick