[Python-ideas] 'where' statement in Python? (original) (raw)

Andrey Popp 8mayday at gmail.com
Wed Jul 21 08:23:40 CEST 2010

Hello,

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 2:48 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:

I'll add another issue:

- currently, lexical blocks (indentation following a colon) are used  for control flow statements; this proposal blurs the line and makes  visual inspection less reliable

Do class definitions or with-statements represent control flow structures? I think, no (with-statement maybe).

I also disagree with the rationale which states that the motivation is similar to that for decorators or list comprehensions. Decorators and list comprehensions add value by making certain constructs more concise and more readable (by allowing to express the construct at a higher level through the use of detail-hiding syntax); as for decorators, they also eliminate the need for repeating oneself. Both have the double benefit of allowing shorter and higher-level code.

Consider the following:

... value = axx + b*x + c given: a = compute_a() b = compute_b() c = compute_c() ...

which is roughly equivalent to

... a = compute_a() b = compute_b() c = compute_c() value = axx + b*x + c ...

with two differences:

Due to the second point, it can't be considered as syntactic sugar.

Is is more readable? I think yes.

-- Andrey Popp

phone: +7 911 740 24 91 e-mail: 8mayday at gmail.com

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