on the popularity of loops while and for

[Hope Rouselle]

Barry <barry at barrys-emacs.org> writes:

>> On 28 Aug 2021, at 22:42, Hope Rouselle <hrouselle at jevedi.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I'd like get a statistic of how often each loop is used in practice.  
>> 
>> I was trying to take a look at the Python's standard libraries --- those
>> included in a standard installation of Python 3.9.6, say --- to see
>> which loops are more often used among while and for loops.  Of course,
>> since English use the preposition ``for'' a lot, that makes my life
>> harder.  Removing comments is easy, but removing strings is harder.  So
>> I don't know yet what I'll do.
>> 
>> Have you guys ever measured something like that in a casual or serious
>> way?  I'd love to know.  Thank you!
>
> I am interesting in why you think that choice of while vs. for is
> about popularity?

Perhaps you think my choice of "popular" had a special judgement about
it.  Let's define "popular" in the way that I used it.  

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Definition.  We say x is more popular than y if x appears more times
relative to y when considered in a sample.

Example.  For loops are more popular than while loops in a certain
sample because they appeared 17 times compared to 5 times the while loop
appeared.
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

So it's just a numeric comparison.

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