PEP 308: some candidate uses cases from live code
Peter Hansen
peter at engcorp.com
Mon Feb 10 13:06:52 EST 2003
Kyler Laird wrote:
>
> claird at lairds.com (Cameron Laird) writes:
>
> >No partial-wink disclaimers? Myself, I think casual maintainers
> >(and that *is* our target audience as Real-Life Programmers,
> >right?) will find
> > sy = d0.year
> > if d0.month < 7:
> > sy -= 1
> >best serves.
>
> Anyone want to claim that this is preferable for some?
> if d0.month < 7:
> sy = d0.year - 1
> else:
> sy = d0.year
>
> I cringe at the duplication of "d0.year" but I've been
> teaching Scheme recently and noticed that students seem
> very comfortable saying "If this is the case, then the
> answer is this, otherwise..." instead of "Always do this
> and then if whatever, modify the result."
>
> I'm not sure how I feel about it.
Speaking purely from a Test-Driven Development point of view,
that approach is *not* preferable because it involves
duplication (of d0.year in this case) whereas the original
form does not.
But I will certainly stand up and claim "this is preferable
for some"... just not for me. ;-)
-Peter
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