[Python-ideas] allow line break at operators

[Yingjie Lan]

> Every language with blocks needs some mechanism to indicate the beginning and ending of blocks and of statements within blocks. If visible fences ('begin/end' or '{}') and statement terminators (';') are used, then '\n' can be treated as merely a space, as it is in C, for instance. 

> and it uses unescaped '\n' (with two escapement options) to terminate statements. This is fundamental to Python's design and goes along with significant indents.

Agreed. Currently indentation in Python starts a new block, but if you view it from the perspective of line breaking, it also functions as if the line is continued. The line of code below

if condition: do_a(); do_b()

can be  written as:

if condition: #line breaks
do_a(); # ';' is optional here 
do_b() # continue

That indentation can be also employed for line breaking is quite evident to me. During the open email correspondence with Stephen, it seems to be a tenable point. 

> There would then be three ways to escape newline, with one doing double duty. And for what? Merely to avoid using either of the two methods already available.

I believe the other two ways are not as good as this new way. As the proposal is fully backward compatible, people may choose whatever way they prefer. 


>________________________________
>From: Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu>
>To: python-list at python.org
>Cc: python-ideas at python.org
>Sent: Sunday, September 4, 2011 3:01 AM
>Subject: Re: [Python-ideas] allow line break at operators
>
>On 9/3/2011 3:51 AM, Yingjie Lan wrote:
>> I agree that long lines of code are not very common in many projects,
>> though it might be the case with some heavily involved in math. For some
>> reason, when the feature of free line breaking came about in computer
>> languages, it is welcomed and generally well accepted.
>
>Every language with blocks needs some mechanism to indicate the beginning and ending of blocks and of statements within blocks. If visible fences ('begin/end' or '{}') and statement terminators (';') are used, then '\n' can be treated as merely a space, as it is in C, for instance.
>
>> Python uses indentation for blocks,
>
>and it uses unescaped '\n' (with two escapement options) to terminate statements. This is fundamental to Python's design and goes along with significant indents.
>
>> and by the same mechanism, line breaking can be
>> accommodated without requiring parenthesis or ending backslashes.
>
>You need proof for your claim that indentation can be used for both jobs in the form of a grammar that works with Python's parser. I am dubious that you can do that with an indents *after* the newline.
>
>Even if you could, it would be confusing for human readers. There would then be three ways to escape newline, with one doing double duty. And for what? Merely to avoid using either of the two methods already available.
>
>-- Terry Jan Reedy
>
>-- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/attachments/20110903/85d02c65/attachment-0001.html>