PEP308: Yet another syntax proposal

[Laura Creighton]

> That's not the question.  The question is whether or not some forms are
> more readable with the conditional operator than without it.  It's
> fundamentally frustrating when people shoot down legitimate examples of
> the conditional operator with, "Oh, but you could have done it _this_
> way."  Well, of _course_ you could have.  The question is whether the
> conditional form is useful and readable on its own merits.
> 
> When people shoot down the max example (e.g., if x > y: x else: y) with
> "Well, you should have used max(x, y)!" is utterly frustrating.  Of
> _course_ it could be written that way.  We're not asking whether there's
> another way to do it, we're asking whether that is readable on its own
> merits.  Those who are against the PEP on general principle seem to
> never understand this distinction.

That is because for many of us this is _not_ what the debate is about.
We don't see Python as some collection of language features, each of
which is to be evaluated on its own merits.  We see it as a whole, and
we see what features are _not_ in the language as part of that whole.
So from our end, the question is not 'is this useful and readable' --
pretty much any concept taken from any language has demonstrated
utility and readability.  The question is about 'worth changing the
language for'.  If you put a high enough value on 'simplicity' and
'lack of diversity' then you will find no language change measures up.
If you find these qualities irrelevant, you can be in favour of every
languge change which could ever produce the most useful and readable
way to express anything.  I don't think that anybody is at these
bounds, but that is where they are.

Laura