Python 3.13.3 (main, Apr 22 2025, 00:00:00) [GCC 15.0.1 20250418 (Red Hat 15.0.1-0)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> if __name__ = "__main__":
...
... main()
...
File "<python-input-0>", line 1
if __name__ = "__main__":
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax. Maybe you meant '==' or ':=' instead of '='?
I searched it up so you don't have to (it's surprisingly hard to find example code for, the first one I found was literally a screenshot on a Microsoft blogpost.)
You really couldn't just use C# for this Microsoft? REALLY????
Basically, when you compile a program written in Rust or C/C++ (the first and second panels respectively), the compiler needs to know what's supposed to be executed first when the program is run directly (i.e. when you click on the executable), which in these languages, is denoted by a special function called main(). Executable files can also contain functions and data structures that can be called by other programs, and when they are, you wouldn't want to run an entire complex and resource intensive program if another program only needs to call a single function from it. In that case, the other program will call the function it wants but not main, so only that function executes and not the entire program.
However, Python is a scripting language that's interpreted. So every Python source file is executable provided you have the Python runtime. Python also doesn't have native support for main functions in the same way Rust and C/C++ does, and it will execute every line of code as it reads the source file. This is why a single line Python file that just calls print is valid, it doesn't need to be wrapped in a main function to execute. However, what if your Python file is both meant to be executed directly and provides functions that other Python files can call? If you just put the main routine in the root of the file, it would be executed every time another program tries to import the file in order to call functions from it, since the import causes the file to be interpreted and executed in its entirety. You can still just have a main function in your file, but since Python doesn't natively support it, your main function won't do anything if you run the file directly because as far as Python is concerned, there is no executable code at the root of the file and you haven't called any functions.
The workaround is to have a single if statement at the root of the file that looks like this:
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
It checks a special variable called __name__. If the Python file is directly executed, __name__ will have the value of the string '__main__', which satisfies the if statement so main() is called. If another Python file imports it, the value of __name__ will be the name of that file, so main() isn't called. It's clunky and not that efficient, but, 1, it works, and 2, if you cared about efficiency, you wouldn't be writing it in Python.
It's mostly beginners thinking of it as a shortcut to making software without learning any of the underlying theory. Basically, why struggle your way through a Rust tutorial on fighting the borrow checker when you can just get AI to do it? Though the issue is as soon as there's something too complex for the AI to figure out, you're out of luck because you've been deliberately avoiding learning the necessary concepts to fix it yourself.
As for whether serious people are pushing it, most actual software engineers, not really, but company management would absolutely like nothing more than to replace all their developers with AI, so yes they're pushing it pretty hard.
Honestly we really just need to make the vaccine mandatory. Don’t want it? Too bad. Don’t participate in society if you don’t have it.
You don’t get to infect other people with a deadly pathogen that we already know how to prevent while screaming about your own bodily autonomy. That’s not how bodily autonomy works.
And if you’re refusing to vaccinate your kids, you should be charged with child neglect/endangerment. Because that’s what the hell it is.
I’ve had it with anti-vax bullshit. Every government and health agency has given them a buffet of carrots. It’s time to bring out the sticks.
If they were genuinely good people they wouldn't be in the 1%.
Being 1% is not just rich, not just disgustingly rich, you needed to have exploited BILLIONS of people for DECADES and had no moral qualms about it. If you did, you would have stopped long before you reached that high.
It's like asking if any 1st degree murderers did it by accident.
Everyone deserves exactly as much tolerance as they're willing to give to others. No more, no less. If someone is hateful to you, no point in wasting your time trying to be nice to them. "I'll be nice to the nazi maybe that'll change them" has never worked, not once.
HiddenLayer555 @ HiddenLayer555 @lemmy.ml Posts 184Comments 902Joined 10 mo. ago
Luckily Python is one step ahead:
Python 3.13.3 (main, Apr 22 2025, 00:00:00) [GCC 15.0.1 20250418 (Red Hat 15.0.1-0)] on linux Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> if __name__ = "__main__": ... ... main() ... File "<python-input-0>", line 1 if __name__ = "__main__": ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax. Maybe you meant '==' or ':=' instead of '='?Also TIL that
:=is a thing in Python.