On 26/12/2018 00:00, Avi Gross wrote: > great. Many things in python can be made to fit and some need work. Dumb > example is that sorting something internally returns None and not the object > itself.
This is one of my few complaints about Python. In Smalltalk the default return value from any method is self. In Python it is None. self allows chaining of methods, None does not. Introducing features like reversed() and sorted() partially addresses the issue but leads to inconsistent and ugly syntax. Smalltalk uses this technique so much it has its own code layout idiom (Pythonised as follows): object .method1() .method2() .method3() .... .lastone() We can do this with some methods but not all. And of course methods that return a different type of value require careful handling (eg. an index() call in the middle of a set of list operations means the subsequent methods are being called on an int not a list - which if handled correctly can be confusing and if not handled correctly produces errors! (The idiomatic way says don't chain with methods not returning self!) In practice I (and the Smalltalk community) don't find that an issue in real world usage, but it may have been why Guido chose not to do it that way. But I still curse the decision every time I hit it! But as I said, it's about the only thing in Python I dislike... a small price to pay. -- Alan G Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.alan-g.me.uk/ http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld Follow my photo-blog on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
