On 7/11/2010 5:24 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
On Sun, 11 Jul 2010 08:59:06 -0700, dhruvbird wrote:
Why doesn't python's list append() method return the list itself? For
that matter, even the reverse() and sort() methods? I found this link
(http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python- class/lists.html)
which suggests that this is done to make sure that the programmer
understands that the list is being modified in place, but that rules out
constructs like:
([1,2,3,4].reverse()+[[]]).reverse()
Yes. So what? Where's the problem?
List methods work in place.
...
Not everything needs to be a one-liner.
It's interesting that all Python functions are considered to
return a value. Arguably, if a function just does a "return",
it should be an error to try to use its return value.
Some languages have a very functional orientation, and
everything is considered to return some value, even
control structures. LISP is like that. But Python isn't
one of those languages.
John Nagle
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