# It is so nice to program in a sane language!
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227
**Category:** Offtopic
**Created:** [December 13, 2019, 10:41am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227 "2019-12-13T10:41:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 10:41am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/1 "2019-12-13T10:41:26Z")
Just watched Gary Bernhardt’s “wat”. JavaScript:
It is so nice to work with a sane programming language
rather than this lunacy!
---
### Author:  [@antoine-levitt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/antoine-levitt)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 10:57am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/2 "2019-12-13T10:57:40Z")
Julia isn’t exactly immune to this kind of interesting behavior. What does
```julia
function g(a)
if a
f() = 2
else
f() = 3
end
return f
end
```
do? 🙂 ([disallow methods of local functions in different blocks · Issue #15602 · JuliaLang/julia · GitHub](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/15602))
---
### Author:  [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 11:07am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/3 "2019-12-13T11:07:58Z")
Yes, this one is weird. It does have a “right” way solution though:
```julia
julia> function g(a)
if a
f = () -> 2
else
f = () -> 3
end
return f
end
g (generic function with 1 method)
julia> g(true)()
2
julia> g(false)()
3
julia>
```
The wrong way just needs to be caught by the compiler, I think.
---
### Author:  [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 11:09am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/4 "2019-12-13T11:09:06Z")
By the way, if you know of some weirdness in Julia, do post it here please.
---
### Author:  [@antoine-levitt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/antoine-levitt)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 11:10am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/5 "2019-12-13T11:10:37Z")
```julia
f = 2
f1 = 2
2f + 2f1
```
edit: heh, nice, discourse highlighting gives it away
---
### Author:  [@kristoffer.carlsson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kristoffer.carlsson)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 11:11am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/6 "2019-12-13T11:11:49Z")
```julia
julia> a = -1
-1
julia> 1^a === 1^(-1)
false
```
```julia
julia> a = 1; b = 2; a + b = 3;
julia> 1 + 4
3
```
```julia
julia> a = 1 + 2
- 3
-3
julia> a
3
```
---
### Author:  [@antoine-levitt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/antoine-levitt)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 11:14am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/7 "2019-12-13T11:14:41Z")
Nice! Should
```julia
julia> x + y = 2
+ (generic function with 1 method)
```
just be forbidden?
---
### Author:  [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 11:17am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/8 "2019-12-13T11:17:43Z")
> [@kristoffer.carlsson](#):
>
> a = 1; b = 2; a + b = 3
```julia
julia> a = 1; b = 2; a + b = 3
ERROR: error in method definition: function Base.+ must be explicitly imported to be extended
Stacktrace:
[1] top-level scope at none:0
[2] top-level scope at REPL[10]:1
```
A bit of protection…
---
### Author:  [@kristoffer.carlsson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kristoffer.carlsson)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 11:31am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/9 "2019-12-13T11:31:10Z")
> [@PetrKryslUCSD](#):
>
> A bit of protection…
If you have used `Base.+`, in the module, yes.
---
### Author:  [@pablosanjose](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pablosanjose)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 11:50am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/10 "2019-12-13T11:50:39Z")
Haha! What a fantastic thread! For readers not so familiar with Julia, most of these are mere curiosities, I’ve never had any of them creep up on me (save perhaps thinking I was adding methods to Base functions without remembering to import them first). Julia is _highly_ consistent and sane in my experience…
---
### Author:  [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 11:56am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/11 "2019-12-13T11:56:44Z")
Numbers being iterable and trailing 1 indexes can be somewhat surprising:
```julia
julia> size(1.0)
()
julia> 1.0[1, 1, 1]
1.0
julia> collect(1.0)
0-dimensional Array{Float64,0}:
1.0
```
---
### Author:  [@antoine-levitt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/antoine-levitt)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 12:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/12 "2019-12-13T12:38:27Z")
I encountered both wats above in real-world code. The worst was when had a complicated interpolation scheme where I sampled a function `f(x,y)` at points 0, 1 and 2 in both directions, and wanted to compute a second derivative with `(f02 - 2f01 + f00)`. That was a fun hour debugging why my results were wrong… (and not even completely wrong, since my function f was about 10…) In general though I agree with you, julia is pretty consistent.
---
### Author:  [@jw3126](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jw3126)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/13 "2019-12-13T12:40:29Z")
```julia
julia> where where where where where where where
Any
```
---
### Author:  [@lostella](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/lostella)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 12:46pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/14 "2019-12-13T12:46:07Z")
This seems to be happening with any odd number of `where` greater than 1?
---
### Author:  [@jw3126](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jw3126)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 12:47pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/15 "2019-12-13T12:47:11Z")
It is basically
```julia
T where T where S
```
with the symbol `where` instead of `T` and `S`.
---
### Author:  [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 1:08pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/16 "2019-12-13T13:08:57Z")
I always thought writing `1x` and `2f` instead of `1*x` and `2*f` was a bad idea.
As my father used to say “just because you could doesn’t mean you should”.
---
### Author:  [@klaff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/klaff)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 6:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/17 "2019-12-13T18:52:33Z")
I much prefer `2π` over `2*π`, which is better still than `2*pi` or the ugliest `=2*PI()`. Also I like being able to write `√(2log(2))`.
But every once in a while I get carried away and try to write `2πf`, which doesn’t work out so well.
---
### Author:  [@leiteiro](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/leiteiro)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2019, 8:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/18 "2019-12-13T20:30:23Z")
In this case the best is to use [tau](https://tauday.com/tau-manifesto) 😉 .
---
### Author:  [@dpsanders](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dpsanders)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2019, 1:23am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/19 "2019-12-14T01:23:06Z")
How many times have I or my students been caught out by `for i in n` instead of `for i in 1:n`. I really wish the former was just made a syntax error.
---
### Author:  [@Mason](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mason)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2019, 1:25am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/it-is-so-nice-to-program-in-a-sane-language/32227/20 "2019-12-14T01:25:51Z")
> [@dpsanders](#):
>
> How many times have I or my students been caught out by `for i in n` instead of `for i in 1:n` . I really wish the former was just made a syntax error.
Conversely, I often find this syntax convenient. 🤷♂️
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