Where is CASE?????

[Larry Smith]

Erik Max Francis wrote:

> Not particularly.  I come from C and C++, which have switch...case
> statements, and it isn't a big deal for them to be missing.  Case
> statements are realy nothing more than glorified repeated if...else
> if... statements, and really don't have any more power (in fact, in C
> and C++, case statements have less).

Case statements can be modelled with if-else chains
but they are not the same internally.  Case statements
are usually compiled as jump tables, rather than as a
series of if-elses.  This is hugely faster than if-else
on average.

However, in Guido's defense, I will also point out the
primary use of case statements is to select alternatives
based on a type flag - which is not needed in an object
oriented language.

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