On 2010-07-12, Steven D'Aprano <st...@remove-this-cybersource.com.au> wrote: > On Sun, 11 Jul 2010 01:30:36 -0700, rantingrick wrote: > >> On Jul 11, 3:03??am, "G??nther Dietrich" <gd.use...@spamfence.net> wrote: >> >>> So, it is not a disadvantage that the functions you listed above are >>> named in this way. In the contrary, it is an advantage, as it keeps >>> newcomers from using stupid variable names. >> >> "int" for an Integer is stupid? >> "list" for a List is stupid? >> "str" for a String is stupid? >> >> What am i missing? > > If you're going to use generic names, why type three or four letters when > one will do? > > i, j, k, m, n, p, q for ints. > L, a, b, x for lists > s, t, a, b for strings. > > If you don't want to use generic names, then int, list, str are useless > because they don't mean anything. You need something like: > > count_of_widgets > list_of_widgets > description
def map(function, list): # etc. It's a slight annoyance, nothing more. In the data I deal with, I get annoyed at needing to write student_id instead of id, but it's not a huge issue. The big consolation is that Python really doesn't care if I happen to shadow a builtin name that I've never heard of. I forget, and use id as a variable all the time, and nothing bad happens to me, because I don't need the builtin function. To see a really odd example of a similar name clash, create a tab separated values file with a header line starting with ID (I get lots of them in my work), and then open it with Excel (I don't know which version has the most bizarre error message). -- Neil Cerutti -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
