[Python-Dev] Pre-PEP: Allow Empty Subscript List Without Parentheses (original) (raw)

Josiah Carlson jcarlson at uci.edu
Fri Jun 16 18:24:01 CEST 2006

"Noam Raphael" <noamraph at gmail.com> wrote:

2006/6/16, Gareth McCaughan <gmccaughan at synaptics-uk.com>: > None of the above is intended to constitute argument for > or against Noam's proposed change to Python. Python isn't > primarily a language for mathematicians, and so much the > better for Python. > Thanks for your explanation of mathematical zero dimensional array! I just wanted to say that I really got to this just from trying to make a computer program as simple as possible - from what I know now, with empty subscript lists not allowed, my library will have more lines of code, will have more details of interface, and will require longer code to operate it. I'm not saying that not changing it will be terrible - I'm just saying that if changing something makes other things simpler AND goes along with mathematical intuition, it might be the right thing to do...

I'm not a mathematician, and I don't really work with arrays of any dimensionality, so the need for 0-D subscripting via arr[] while being cute, isn't compelling to my uses for Python.

Now, I appreciate the desire to reduce code length and complexity, but from what I understand, the ultimate result of such a change to your code would be to go from: arr[()] to: arr[]

I don't see how this can reduce lines of code in implementation or use. At most it is a two characters per use, and a change in documentation (specifying how you subscript 0-D arrays). If you can show an example where actual code line count is reduced with this change, I can't guarantee that I would get behind this proposal in a few months (if the conversation starts up again), but it may make me feel less that your proposal is essentially about aesthetics.

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