PEP-308 a "simplicity-first" alternative

[Christian Tismer]

Tim Peters wrote:
> [holger krekel]
> 
>>      x and y else z
> 
> [Christian Tismer]
> 
...

>>I have the strong feeling that it will make it.
> 
> 
> Redefining truth used to be easier <wink>:  I mentioned it to Guido late
> afternoon, and his reaction was that it must have been cooked up by someone
> who spent too much time in this thread.

Sure:
At first sight, it looks crazy.
At second sight, "x and y or z" is crazy as well.
At personal sight, "x then y else z" would be perfect,
while "if x then y else z fi" would fit my preferences
ideally, but as said long ago, "if fi" is not mandatory;
I'm happy to add parentheses whenever necessary.

Back to "x and y else z". Quoting BDFL:
'Stare long enough at it, and it looks very pythonic.'

If that pythonism can cure the dichotomy between
str.join and string.join,
it is also good enough to accept Holger's proposal.

At least for my small personal contribution to Python's
subjective "pythonic" criterion, it rang that bell.
Didn't happen with the original proposal, tho, although
I tried hard.

>>Holger, this was an outstanding, genial idea!
> 
> In the context of this thread, I agree.

You are not talking of this single thread, since
it was all about /this/ proposal.
I have to agree that your conclusion is true, given you mean
the whole set of threads and its average quality.
Despite of that, I reject putting it down this way.
HK's input *is* very good, regardless whether you judge
"x and y or z" being bad.
I think we know that the latter is. No offense but history.

> Stepping back, there have been lots
> of ideas in these threads that wouldn't have gotten a second glance had they
> been proposed a month ago.  However, it may be hard to tell the difference
> unless you're Guido <wink>.

I'm not pretending to be Guido. If I sound so, then
I have a bug and need adjustment [krrck].
Tismer is different since (s)he is written in Stackless.
It has a huge personality module that wants to be itself.
If it uses that module to influence c.l.py votes, this
is just fair play.

Anyway, please show me any other proposal that is
as minimalistic as this one. Please, stare at it
a little while and weight it's impact to the simplicity
of the language, readability, ease of impl, and getting
all these threads to a happy shut-down (or -up).

Python is Klingonean for "spartanic" -- chris

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