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PEP308: Yet another syntax proposal

Raymond Hettinger vze4rx4y at verizon.net
Mon Feb 10 13:00:53 EST 2003 
"Sheila King" <usenet at thinkspot.net> wrote in message
news:b27qm7.v8.1 at kserver.org...
> > * The ?? and || strongly suggest testing and alternation.
>
> To whom? The || would only suggest alternation to those who have already
> programmed in languages where this is the symbol for "or".

In python, | is the symbol for bitwise-or.
When paired with ??  with || the meaning is further clarified.


> "Why do people keep proposing cryptic punctuation-based syntax for this?

Because:
1. New keyword proposals are doomed
2. Bending old keywords creates ambiguity
3. Punctuation operators work well in expressions.
    Who (except a COBOL programmer) would want:
          2 plus 3 times 5
4. Reading through the provided live code examples,
    it is much clearer than keyword alternatives
5. I spent an afternoon finding the least cryptic
    form of punctuation I could think of.
    The only close alternative was:
          x = cond  ??  val1 ::  val2
    I felt || was better because colons were
    already so heavily loaded.


Raymond Hettinger
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