On Wed, 11 May 2011 15:05:45 +0100, Hans Georg Schaathun wrote: > My concern was with the reader and not the writer. > > What could elif mean other than else: if?
It could mean "Oh, the author has made a stupid typo, I better fix it." It could mean "What does the elif command do?" The first time I read Python code, I had literally no idea what to make of elif. It seemed so obvious to me that any language would let you write "else if ..." (on a single line) that I just assumed that elif must be some other construct, and I had no idea what it was. It never even crossed my mind that it could be "else if" rammed together into one word. I soon learned better though. Once you start dumbing down your code for readers who don't know your language, it's a race to the bottom. There's very little you can write that *somebody* won't misunderstand. > if x could, for instance, mean "if x is defined". Yes it could, if you're programming in Perl. But we're not. When I write a sentence in English, and I use the word "gift" to mean a thing which is given, I don't worry that German or Swedish readers will think I'm talking about poison. If I use "preservative", I mean something which preserves, and if Italian and Spanish readers mistake it for a condom, that's their problem, not mine. Writing code is no different. When I'm coding in Python, I use Python rules and meanings, not some other language. Why should I code according to what some hypothetical Python dummy *might* think the code will do, instead of what the code *actually* does? -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
