Coding style

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message <44bcaa47$0$18293$636a55ce at news.free.fr>, Bruno Desthuilliers
wrote:

> 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.
> 
> Python has a boolean type.

A _proper_ boolean type would _have_ to be used in conditionals.

>> That means, never assume that arbitrary values
>> can be interpreted as true or false,
> 
> There's nothing to assume, and nothing arbitrary in it. It's all clearly
> defined in whole letters in the language references.

Not simply enough.

>> always put in an explicit comparison
>> if necessary so it's obvious the expression is a Boolean.
> 
> The fact that the expression is used in the context of a if statement is
> clearly enough to denote a boolean expression.

Which is an inconsistent use of the term "boolean" compared to your
statement above that "Python has a boolean type", is it not?

> Explicitly testing against a boolean is uselessly redundant...

Not sure this has anything with what I was saying.