Coding style

[Georg Brandl]

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> In message <Q8OdnfqZn6udnSHZnZ2dnUVZ_vOdnZ2d at nmt.edu>, Bob Greschke wrote:
> 
>> I'd go even one step further.  Turn it into English (or your favorite
>> non-computer language):
>> 
>> 1. While list, pop.
>> 
>> 2. While the length of the list is greater than 0, pop.
>> 
>> Which one makes more sense?  Guess which one I like.  CPU cycles be
>> damned.
>> :)
> 
> One of my rules is, always program like the language actually has a Boolean
> type, even if it doesn't. That means, never assume that arbitrary values
> can be interpreted as true or false, always put in an explicit comparison
> if necessary so it's obvious the expression is a Boolean.

You can do that, but it's not considered Pythonic. And it might be ineffective.

Other than in PHP, Python has clear rules when an object of a builtin type
is considered false (i.e. when it's empty). So why not take advantage of
this?

Georg