In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "John Coleman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Very good point, though one could argue perhaps that when one is > comparing an object with a truth value then one is implicitly asking > for the truth value of that object On the contrary -- since there is normally no need to ever compare an object with a truth value, then I would interpret this usage as an attempt to distinguish True or False from other objects in general. Some kind of placeholders for missing values, who knows. I'm not saying it's a great idea, but it could work in recent versions of Python. > This would make code like 'if s: ' equivalent > to 'if s == True:' with a possible gain in readability. But - as you > demonstrate the cost of that (minimal) gain in readability would be too > high. In any event - I think it is mostly bad style to use a > non-boolean variable in 'if s:' - it reminds me too much of obscure C > code (though others might disagree). Others will indeed disagree. I don't think you'll find much support for this position. But it's not as bad as your notion that "if s == True", where s is not a boolean object, might represent a gain in readability. That really redefines readability. Donn Cave, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
