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ternary operator

Alex Martelli aleax at aleax.it
Thu Feb 6 18:50:35 EST 2003 
Paul Rubin wrote:
   ...
> Yeah.  I've never understood this obsession with keeping conditional
> expressions out of Python.  They didn't confuse people in Algol-60 and
> I think Pascal (designed as newbie language from the beginning) had
> them too.

I believe you misremember.  Pascal, as designed (as a language for
newbies) by N. Wirth, had no conditional expressions (and no logical
operators that ensured short-circuiting, either).  Pascal was a very
deliberate reversion to simplicity from the complications of Algol-68
(I _think_ Algol 60 didn't have "short-circuiting conditional expressions"
either, and it did make a distinction between statements and expressions,
like Pascal and unlike Algol 68 -- but it's been far too long since I
actually used Algol for me to feel certain about it), so that is hardly
surprising.

I don't think there are implications about Python from the choices
historically made by Backus, Naur, Wirth, and others in the '60s, but
nevertheless I'd appreciate clarification by careful historians...


Alex
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