number ranges (was Re: Matlab page on scipy wiki)

[John Zenger]

Colin J. Williams wrote:
> Bryan Cole wrote:
> 
>>>       
>>> First, I think the range() function in python is ugly to begin with.
>>> Why can't python just support range notation directly like 'for a in
>>> 0:10'.  Or with 0..10 or 0...10 syntax.  That seems to make a lot more
>>> sense to me than having to call a named function.   Anyway, that's a
>>> python pet peeve, and python's probably not going to change something
>>> so fundamental...   

I strongly agree that Python should promote range or xrange to syntax. 
I favor [0..10] rather than [0:10] because 0..10 is inherently easier to 
understand.  Every maths text I have read uses the ".." notation to show 
ranges; for that reason, perhaps, Haskell uses "..".  The colon is 
already overused; it both signals the beginning of compound statements, 
and has all sorts of slice/indexing meanings when it is inside square 
brackets, depending on how many colons there are and whether there are 
arguments between them.

Haskell also has a good step notation.  In Haskell:

[1..10] means [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
[1,3..10] means [1,3,5,7,9]