On Sun, May 13, 2018 at 10:27 AM, Juancarlo Añez <apal...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> if (diff := x - x_base) and (g := gcd(diff, n)) > 1: >> return g >> > > I don't see the advantage in that succinctness: > > g = special_gcd(x - x_base, n) > > if g: > > return g > > > The code bases I work on constantly move towards having the next guy grok > what's going on just by reading the code. > > It could also be: > > if special_gcd(x - x_base, n) as g: > > return g >
Now I have to go read elsewhere to figure out what "special_gcd" does. With Tim's original code, I could see the effect right there. It might not seem significant with a single function, but if you had this situation come up a dozen times, now you have a dozen functions, each one used only once. You have to go a LONG way out of line to find the meaning of this name. Remember: Giving a function a useful name means figuring out a name that means you do not need to read the function's body to understand what it does. It's easy to say "just make it a function", but that's utterly useless if the next reader has to grok the function's implementation to understand its usage. ChrisA _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list Python-ideas@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
