[Python-Dev] [PATCH] Adding braces to future (original) (raw)

Mike Meyer mwm at mired.org
Fri Dec 9 22:11:29 CET 2011

On Fri, 9 Dec 2011 21:26:29 +0100 Cedric Sodhi <manday at gmx.net> wrote:

Readable code, is it really an advantage? Of course it is.

Ok, you got that right.

Forcing the programmer to write readable code, is that an advantage? No suspense, the answer is Of course not.

This is not an "Of course". Readable code is important. Giving programmers more power in exchange for less readable code is a bad trade. For an extended analsysis, see: http://blog.mired.org/2011/10/more-power-is-not-always-good-thing.html

One of Python's best points is that the community resists the urge to add things just to add things. The community generally applies three tests to any feature before accepting it:

  1. It should have a good use case.
  2. It should enable more readable code for that use case.
  3. It shouldn't make writing unreadable code easy.

DB fails all three of these tests. It doesn't have a good use case. The code you create using it is not more readable than the alternative. And it definitely makes writing unreadable code easy.

And of course, it violates TOOWTDI.

<mike

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