"?:", "a and b or c" or "iif"

[Fred L. Drake]

Robert Meegan writes:
 > As someone who is decidedly not from a computer science background,
 > I believe one of Python's strongest points is the simple elegance
 > of the language. Time and again people identify a feature of
 > another language and decry how Python requires you to implement it
 > using the primitive tools available. IMHO, these people may be
 > missing the point of writing in Python.

Robert,
  In spite of my computer science background, I agree.  ;-)

 > you look at a code segment, it is almost immediately apparent what
 > the author intended. When you see the code segment that Fred wrote
 > above, there is very little room for confusion. Similarly, when you
 > find a "while 1:" construct, it is pretty obvious that the author

  In my book (unpublished ;), conditional expressions (?:) are very
clear when used carefully.  Any construct can be unclear if not used
carefully.
  I find it very common that I want something like ?: -- I don't see
it as being at all unclear.  I think the specific syntax has to be
well-chosen, and I don't know what it should look like yet.

 > better to require a few additional lines of code? After all, we live in the
 > golden era of cut and paste and global search and replace. It's easier to

  Funny, I only rarely find global search and replace useful with
code; I want to actually work through my changes carefully to make
sure I'm not introducing side effects.


  -Fred

--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.	     <fdrake at acm.org>
Corporation for National Research Initiatives