asincero wrote: > Is there anyway to catch the following type of bug in Python code: > > message = 'This is a message' > if some_obscure_condition: > nessage = 'Some obscure condition occured.' > print message > > > In the above example, message should be set to 'Some obscure condition > occured.' if some_obscure_condition is True. But due to a lack of > sleep, and possibly even being drunk, the programmer has mistyped > message. These types of bugs would easily be caught in languages that > have a specific keyword or syntax for declaring variables before use.
There are tools that help (e.g. pychecker), but there are a few things to consider: 1) If the programmer is sleepy/drunk, you're going to have other bugs too (logical errors, not handling all cases, etc.) 2) Other languages would catch *some* types of these bugs, but would still miss some of them (I can see a sleepy programmer also using the wrong variable instead of just mistyping the right one). So while a tool might assist, it's worth your while to also consider some strategies for tackling the above two problems and, in the process, the sleepy-programmer-mistype bugs will get caught as well. Some type of testing is probably the best answer - be it reusable unit tests or, at the very least, some interactive testing of code snippets (which Python makes really easy to do). -Dave -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
