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[Python-Dev] Re: accumulator display syntax

Alex Martelli aleaxit at yahoo.com
Mon Oct 20 12:23:45 EDT 2003 
On Monday 20 October 2003 05:51 pm, Moore, Paul wrote:
   ...
> Did I miss April 1st? We seem to be discussing the merits of
>
>     f of arg
>
> as an alternative form of
>
>    f(arg)
>
> While I'm sure Cobol had some good points, I don't believe that this was
> one of them...

I may disagree, but it's sure too late to redesign Python today in that 
respect;-).


> If there is any merit to this proposal, it's very rapidly being lost in
> examples of rewriting things which are simple function calls.

Agreed, and I pointed that out in my latest msg to this thread -- just like
e.g. rewriting the simple function call mydict.has_key(k) as the cool, 
readable "k in mydict", quite identically rewriting the simple function call
sum(numbers) as the cool, readable "sum of numbers" would be mere
syntax sugar, "more than one way to do it", etc.

So, limiting the discussion to Greg's original idea of using 'of' for iterator 
comprehensions will be wiser and more prudent (just like one would
never dare suggesting 'in' as an alternative to calling has_key, say:-).
That 'of' thingy is just SO pretty it's making some of us lose their heads,
that's all...!-)


Alex
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