On Sat, Oct 25, 2014 at 4:03 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > Ha! And yet people have, and continue to, complain *bitterly* about the > non-standard ordering of Python's ternary if, compared to C, standard > if...else syntax, and English. > > "If the syntax is like C, then people will use it, or else they will > complain that the syntax is incomprehensible." > > Personally, I don't accept or agree with such complaints. Python's ternary > if follows the same syntax as this English variant: > > "People will use it if the syntax is like C, or else they will complain that > the syntax is incomprehensible."
Partly, I think this is a difference between programming and pure mathematics. In algebra, there's operator precedence, but no order of evaluation; in programming, there's both: https://docs.python.org/3/reference/expressions.html#evaluation-order In English, there's not really a concept of order of evaluation either. "People will use it" doesn't need to be evaluated separately from "if the syntax is like C". But in Python, the if/else operator mucks up the general principle that an expression will be evaluated left-to-right, because it's evaluated middle-to-outer for that one operator. Messing with internal expectations, even if it's following some external logic like English grammar, will confuse people. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
