the dreaded offside rule

[Johannes Waldmann]

>>>    1) it is impossible to explain the precise workings of the rule to
>>> a class of first years undergraduates

Try "Python copied the offside rule from Haskell,
so it must be cool." (*) http://docs.python.org/ref/indentation.html

Which is true only "morally", e. g. it says here
http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general.html#what-is-python
that the indentation idea comes from a language ABC:
http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/abc/
Where does Haskell's rule come come from?

(*) Of course the typical undergrad is a part-time web developer, using
Zope, and he thinks that Python is cool because it has no static typing,
so that programming is "much easier" than at university where they teach
him Haskell. But he soon finds that he can leave out all Haskell type
signatures as well, so he thinks that Haskell is going in the right
direction...
-- 
-- Johannes Waldmann -- Tel/Fax (0341) 3076 6479/80 --
---- http://www.imn.htwk-leipzig.de/~waldmann/ -------