Python style questions

[Jeremy R Van Haren]

Michael Hudson wrote:
> 
> Tim Roberts <timr at probo.com> writes:
> 
> > Joshua Marshall <jmarshal at mathworks.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >A switch statement may just be syntactic sugar, but not necessarily in
> > >a simple way.  A good compiler will compile switch statements into
> > >jump-tables or, at worst, binary searches.  Cluttery to code by hand.
> > >
> > >Sure this is "just" an efficiency thing, but switches can get quite big.
> >
> > But Python, at least today, is not compiled.
> 
> Yes it is (at least in this context).
> 
> > Switch statements in an interpreted language are not as big of a
> > "win".
> 
> There's no reason that the bytecode compiler couldn't do binary search
> jiggery-pokery, although if I was doing it, I'd probably use a
> dictionary.
> 
> Cheers,
> M.
> 
> --
>   MGM will not get your whites whiter or your colors brighter.
>   It will, however, sit there and look spiffy while sucking down
>   a major honking wad of RAM.              -- http://www.xiph.org/mgm/

Actually, switch "implementation" above that uses dictionary's which is
hashed.  So a supported switch statement should be able to do hash as
well.