On Saturday, November 9, 2013 8:08:25 AM UTC-5, John von Horn wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I'm Mr. Noobie here, I've just started easing into Python (2.7.4) and am
> enjoying working along to some youtube tutorials. I've done a little
> programming in the past.
>
> I've just got a few thoughts I'd like to share and ask about:
>
> * Why not allow floater=float(int1/int2) - rather than floater=float
> (int1)/float(int2)?
>
> Give me a float (or an error message) from evaluating everything in the
> brackets. Don't make me explicitly convert everything myself (unless I
> want to)
>
The language has to specify what int1/int2 should evaluate to. Python 2 says
it is an int. Once that computation is done, passing that int to float() can't
bring back the lost information. Python 3 says that int1/int2 produces a
float, and you can get that behavior if you use "from __future__ import
division" at the top of your Python 2.7 file.
> * No sign of a select .. case statement
>
> Another useful tool in the programmer's toolbox
>
> Select DayofWeek
>
> case "mon"
>
> ...
>
> end select
>
This is a bit more controversial. Python has no select statement because it
has very little advantage over simply using an if/elif/elif/else ladder. In
languages like C, a switch compiles to a table lookup. In Python, all the
actual comparisons would have to be done anyway, so it would simply be an
alternate syntax for a number of if statements. In the interest of not
cluttering the language, the switch statement doesn't exist.
> * Call me pedantic by why do we need a trailing comma for a list of one
> item? Keep it intuitive and allow lstShopping=[] or ["Bread"] or
> ["Bread", "Milk","Hot Chocolate"] I don't like ["Bread",]. It bugs me.
>
You're mistaken: One-element lists are written without a trailing comma, though
you are allowed to include them. One-element tuples, though, require the
trailing comma, since ("hello") is just the same as "hello".
Welcome to Python!
> JvH
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