Home Original page

[Python-Dev] Switch statement

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Wed Jun 21 02:01:50 CEST 2006 
Phillip J. Eby wrote:

> Actually, one could consider "case" expressions to be computed at function 
> definition time, the way function defaults are.  That would solve the 
> problem of symbolic constants, or indeed any sort of expressions.

That's an excellent idea!

> It's just a question of which one is easier to explain. 

I think the function-definition-time one is easiest to
both explain and also to reason about when writing code,
since definition time is well-defined, whereas "the first
time it's executed" is somewhat fuzzy.

It's also a lot clearer how it interacts with closures,
which is another good point.

I recommend adding this option to the relevant PEP
(whichever it is).

--
Greg
More information about the Python-Dev mailing list