[Python-ideas] Multi-line comment blocks. (original) (raw)

Steven D'Aprano steve at pearwood.info
Sat Jun 16 00:12:51 CEST 2012

David Gates wrote:

Multi-line strings as comments don't nest, don't play well with docstrings, and are counter-intuitive when there's special language support for single-line comments. Python should only have one obvious way to do things,

That's not what the Zen says. The zen says:

There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.

which is a positive statement that there should be an obvious way to solve problems, NOT a negative statement that there shouldn't be non-obvious ways.

and Python has two ways to comment, only one of which is obvious. My suggestion is to add language support for comment blocks, using Python's existing comment delimiter:

There is already support for nested multi-line comments: the humble # symbol can be nested arbitrarily deep. All you need is a modern editor that understands Python syntax, and with a single command you can comment or uncomment a block:

This is a commented line.

def fun(a, b, c):

"""Docstrings are fine when commented"""

pass

# This is a nested comment.

And no need for an end-delimiter either.

If your editor is old or too basic, you can do it by hand, which is a pain, but doable.

Python doesn't need dedicated syntax to make up for the limitations of your editor. Don't complicate the language for the sake of those poor fools stuck using Notepad.

-- Steven

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