John Salerno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > personally, i don't mind the colon and see no need to lose it, but > if we are talking in the realm of aesthetics, it actually seems like > it would be cleaner if it weren't there...sure, at first everyone > who is used to it might feel like something is missing, or the line > is "hanging" open, but overall the less characters, the better, > right? isn't that why the braces are gone?
No. "The fewer characters, the better" is not right. Such absolutes are to be avoided. Sometimes, as in the case of omitting block-enclosing braces, removing characters results in better readability. Other times, as in the case of explicit names for objects, *more* characters results in better readability -- but only up to a point. Readability doesn't vary directly or inversely with the number of characters, even though it is affected when they change. -- \ "I bought a self learning record to learn Spanish. I turned it | `\ on and went to sleep; the record got stuck. The next day I | _o__) could only stutter in Spanish." -- Steven Wright | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
