[Python-Dev] Don't assign to a variable used later in the expression

[Nathaniel Smith]

On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 4:10 PM, Ivan Pozdeev via Python-Dev
<python-dev at python.org> wrote:
> On 04.07.2018 10:10, Nathaniel Smith wrote:
>> Right, Python has a *very strong* convention that each line should
>> have at most one side-effect, and that if it does have a side-effect
>> it should be at the outermost level.
>
>> I think the most striking evidence for this is that during the
>> discussion of PEP 572 we discovered that literally none of us –
>> including Guido – even *know* what the order-of-evaluation is inside
>> expressions. In fact PEP 572 now has a whole section talking about the
>> oddities that have turned up here so far, and how to fix them. Which
>> just goes to show that even its proponents don't actually think that
>> anyone uses side-effects inside expressions, because if they did, then
>> they'd consider these changes to be compatibility-breaking changes. Of
>> course the whole point of PEP 572 is to encourage people to embed
>> side-effects inside expressions, so I hope they've caught all the
>> weird cases, because even if we can still change them now we won't be
>> able to after PEP 572 is implemented.
>
> I may have a fix to this:
>
> Do not recommend assigning to the variable that is used later in the
> expression.

This would rule out all the comprehension use cases.

I'd be fine with that personally. Reading through the PEP again I see
that there are more examples of them than I previously realized,
inside the semantics discussion and... well, this may be a personal
thing but for me they'd all be better described as "incomprehensions".

But, nonetheless, the comprehension use cases are supposed to be a
core motivation for the whole PEP. Also, some of the main arguments
for why a full-fledged := is better than the more limited alternative
proposals rely on using a variable on the same line where it's
assigned (e.g. Tim's gcd example). So I don't see this recommendation
getting any official traction within PEP 572 or PEP 8.

Of course you're free to use whatever style rules you prefer locally –
python-dev has nothing to do with that.

-n

-- 
Nathaniel J. Smith -- https://vorpus.org