520

submitted 4 days ago by bestelbus22@lemmy.world to c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml

70 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] bobo1900@sopuli.xyz 79 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Partially unrelated to the meme, but I find it almost malicious how some python keywords are named differently from the nearly universal counterpart of other languagues.

This/self, continue/pass, catch/except and they couldn't find a different word for switch so they just didn't implement it.

It's as if the original designers purposefully wanted to be different for the sake of it.

[-] lime@feddit.nu 64 points 4 days ago

pass and continue are absolutely not equal (pass is a noop, and python has a continue keyword that does what you think), and switch is called match like in many other languages. except is weird though.

[-] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 11 points 4 days ago

"except" is also used in Pascal (or at least the main derivatives of it), but not sure if that's older than its use in Python or not.

[-] sjmarf@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 days ago

Python does have a switch statement now, actually. And yes, they went out of their way to call it something different - match.

https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/controlflow.html#match-statements

[-] NichtElias@sh.itjust.works 11 points 4 days ago

match isn't just equivalent to switch though, so in this case it actually makes sense to call it something different.

[-] Archr@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

This is very true. Match statements are much more powerful that switch statements in any other language.

For instance:

matching objects very specifically
if conditions within case statements
pulling variables from inside of the object directly.

[-] bestelbus22@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago

I read that self as a keyword also has quite a history. It was already used in Smalltalk, an OOP language from the early 80's.

[-] Jambalaya@lemmy.zip 15 points 4 days ago

Isn't self not actually a keyword? Like you can name the first variable in a class method anything and it will behave like self.

[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 17 points 4 days ago

You could use "this" instead of "self". And if you want a lynch mob of Python programmers outside your house, make a push request with that to some commonly used package.

[-] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 14 points 4 days ago

I think there will be a lynch mob of git users outside your house for calling PR as "push request".

[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I've been wondering about the noise.

Edit: turns out, they weren't there to lynch me. They just gave me a two hour lecture on proper usage of git.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] lime@feddit.nu 8 points 4 days ago

only github users. git itself doesn't have PRs, and other forges call them different things. gitlab calls them merge requests, pico calls them patch requests...

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 4 days ago

PHP naming "::" a Paamayim Nekudotayim is also pretty infamous.

When I'm designing shit, I'm pretty zealous about borrowing terminology from anything even vaguely related to avoid this.

load more comments (4 replies)

[-] SolNine@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 days ago

List and Array terminology also bothers me ... Why not just call it an array?

[-] Pyro@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

But python lists are not like the base arrays in other languages. They function more like List<> or vector (C++ had to be special) and are named appropriately.

load more comments (16 replies)

[-] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 44 points 4 days ago

In Python, self is not a keyword, it’s a conventional variable name. You can replace all instances of “self” with “this” and your code will work the same.

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 days ago

Lua might have been a better choice, since self is special in lua.

[-] diemartin@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Kinda.

Lua defines it implicitly only when you use the

function foo:bar(a, b, c) -- note the colon

syntactic sugar, which gets translated to

function foo.bar(self, a, b, c) -- note the period

In all cases, self is a regular variable name. You can even redeclare a new local with that name even when the old one is in scope.

Edit: some typos

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 days ago

I don't see how what you said is inconsistent with me saying "self" is special in lua. Note that I did not say it's a keyword.

[-] diemartin@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

Derp, I misread.

[-] SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 days ago

Python is just distancing itself from JS.

[-] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 53 points 4 days ago

TBF the last two bullet points are verbose descriptions of the thing it means in C++, Java, and Python too. It's just that in JS, "this" can also be used in other places.

But yeah, in practice, every time I write JS I want to throw my hands in the air and shout "this is bullshit", but never know what "this" refers to... :D

[-] bestelbus22@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

Yeah that's fair, though it also discusses that whole prototype thing that JS has going on

[-] dan@literature.cafe 30 points 4 days ago

Sweet dreams are made of this

[-] Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 4 days ago

Rust: Borrow handler got mad at you for asking

(I'd assume)

[-] drbluefall@toast.ooo 18 points 4 days ago

It's either a reference to an object instance, or the instance itself (depending on whether you specified &mut self, &self or just self).

[-] ferric_carcinization@lemmy.ml 13 points 4 days ago

Don't forget Self, the type of self.

[-] xiii@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I was working on a C code base with classes, inheritance, and polymorphism, all done by hands and macros.

Something like

typedef struct s_some_class {
    void (*method)(this *s_some_class);
} t_some_class;

Overall, learning C was the best enabler in my whole career. For instance I was learning Python by tinkering with CPython VM, so when I see these ‘WAT’ quircks I know exactly what’s up.

[-] bestelbus22@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Interesting, how did they do inheritance? Something like void *super? Also why not switch to CPP if you wanna do OOP?

[-] xiii@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

In general, 'classes' declarations were done with macro. I don't remember the exact code — something akin to

BEGIN_CLASS(A, Parent);
CLASS_MEMBER(a...)
END_CLASS();

The project had started before C++ existed, and the switch would be too costly. It's not just OOP part, also reflection mechanism with bindings to the homemade scripting language, and multi-platform UI library. It was a gem of its time.

[-] bestelbus22@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

That sounds like quite a challenge to maintain, to speak in euphemisms ;)

[-] xiii@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Revolutionary technologies of the '80 make me appreciate modern programming languages and especially tooling much more.

[-] JakenVeina@lemm.ee 14 points 4 days ago

Alternative image for C: Mr. Incredible: "A PARAMETER IS A PARAMETER!"

[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 12 points 4 days ago

My JS:

Ah, you mean that?

[-] AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

In Python you can use this as a variable name

[-] pennomi@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

In Python you can use 🍆 as a variable name.

Edit: oops, guess I was mistaken, you can use most Unicode but emojis are not valid.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 4 days ago

Edit: oops, guess I was mistaken, you can use most Unicode but emojis are not valid.

That actually seems even more arbitrary. Like, do they just hate fun?

[-] embed_me@programming.dev 11 points 4 days ago

Just going by the reputation, you probably can do this in JavaScript

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago

you might be thinking of Rust.

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (4 replies)

load more comments

this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025

520 points (97.4% liked)

Programmer Humor

36413 readers

191 users here now

Post funny things about programming here! (Or just rant about your favourite programming language.)

Rules:

Posts must be relevant to programming, programmers, or computer science.
No NSFW content.
Jokes must be in good taste. No hate speech, bigotry, etc.

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml

cat_programmer@lemmy.ml