Terry Reedy wrote: > On 8/23/2011 11:22 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > >> Even 7±2 is probably excessive: I find that I'm most comfortable with >> functions that perform 4±1 chunks of work. An example from one of my >> classes: >> >> def find(self, prefix): >> """Find the item that matches prefix.""" >> prefix = prefix.lower() # Chunk #1 >> menu = self._cleaned_menu # Chunk #2 >> for i,s in enumerate(menu, 1): # Chunk #3 >> if s.lower().startswith(prefix): >> return i >> return None # Chunk #4 >> >> So that's three one-line chunks and one three-line chunk. > > In terms of different functions performed (see my previous post), I see > attribute lookup > assignment > enumerate > sequence unpacking > for-looping > if-conditioning > lower > startswith > return > That is 9, which is enough.
I think we have broad agreement, but we're counting different things. Analogy: you're counting atoms, I'm grouping atoms into molecules and counting them. It's a little like phone numbers: it's not an accident that we normally group phone numbers into groups of 2-4 digits: 011 23 4567 8901 In general, people can more easily memorise four chunks of four digits (give or take) than one chunk of 13 digits: 0112345678901. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
