A Welcome Syntax

For example, they expect that res = func(foo) + func2(bar); res = await res will work, as will res = await func(foo) + func2(bar), as shorthand for res = await func(foo) + await func2(bar), because that fits their ad-hoc theories, and it doesn't work (for reasons that are very obvious to any programmer). I had some success getting them to write this as res = (await func(foo)) + (await func2(bar)), but that's fallen by the wayside over time as people remove the outer parentheses, and then get confused again when they come to copy-and-paste this into a new test harness.

If they were programming regularly, they'd learn that "await func" is indivisible. But they're not - they're usually working in the lab with physical hardware, writing equations and things to convince themselves that their measurements are telling them what they expect to see, and then eventually coming back to automate this. And we're not big enough to afford someone employed full time to turn their test harnesses into code based on written descriptions, so we suffer instead.

$ cat t.py
import asyncio

async def x():
    print('A')
    await asyncio.sleep(1)
    print('B')
    await(asyncio.sleep(1))
    print('C')

asyncio.run(x())

$ python3 t.py
A
B
C