"Carl Banks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Paul Rubin wrote: > > "Carl Banks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > So do you approve of the movement to get rid of the print > statement? > > > > > > Any little incremental change in Python you could make by having or > not > > > having a print statement would be minor compared to the H-Bomb of > > > ugliness we'd get if suites of statements were to be allowed inside > > > Python expressions. Having or not having a print statement might > > > violate some small aspect of the Zen, but it won't rape the whole > list. > > > > How about macros? Some pretty horrible things have been done in C > > programs with the C preprocessor. But there's a movememnt afloat to > > add hygienic macros to Python. Got any thoughts about that? > > How about this: Why don't you go to a Python prompt, type "import > this", and read the Zen of Python. Consider each line, and whether > adding macros to the language would be going against that line or for > it. After you've done that, make an educated guess of what you think > I'd think about macros, citing various Zens to support your guess. > > Then I'll tell you what my my thoughts about it are.
The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters Beautiful is better than ugly. => +1 macros Explicit is better than implicit. => +1 macros Simple is better than complex. => +1 macros Complex is better than complicated. => I don't understand this, +0 Flat is better than nested. => not sure, +0 Sparse is better than dense. => +1 macros Readability counts. => +1 macros Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules. => +1 macros Although practicality beats purity. => +1 macros Errors should never pass silently. => +1 macros Unless explicitly silenced. => +1 macros In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess. => +1 macros There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it. => -1 Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch. => ??? Now is better than never. => +1 macros, let's do it Although never is often better than *right* now. => +1 If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea. => unknown, +0 If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea. => +0 Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those! => +1 I'm -1 on doing stuff by received dogma, but in this particular case it looks to me like the dogma is +12 for macros. What are your thoughts? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list