On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:12:51 -0700, Paul Rubin wrote: > Steven D'Aprano <st...@remove-this-cybersource.com.au> writes: >> def assemble_page(header, body, footer): >> if header or body or footer: >> do_lots_of_expensive_processing() >> else: >> do_nothing_gracefully() > > Why should the processing be expensive if all three fields are empty?
Since I haven't specified an implementation for assemble_page, it could be doing *anything*. Perhaps it has to talk to a remote database over a slow link, perhaps it generates 300 lines of really inefficient HTML code with no content, perhaps it sends a print job to a printer which then warms up, cleans the print heads, and ejects a blank piece of paper. Why does it matter? The example is about the `if` test, not about the function assemble_page(). -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
