Testing conditions. Common scenario. Old programmer, new to Python, love it, but still hankering after some of my old ways.
Of all of it's 'new to me' features, I appear to be enjoying 'no declarations' and mixing types with abandon. In particular I find myself writing functions which return whatever might be useful in whatever type seems appropriate, I'm really attracted to this, it works like magic. BUT, every time the result of a fuction hits a 'while' or 'if' the magic stops. If I want the result and I want to test it I have to do an assignment and test separately. It grates every time I come across this, and it seems obvious what I'm hankering for. I *know* this has been gone over and over and over... This is NOT another request for statements to be accepted as expressions for two reasons:- 1. I've seen enough arguments on the subject where I've found myself firmly on the anti change side. 2. I now realise that it might scratch the itch, but it would not cure it. e.g. 1 | while new_data = get_more_data(source): | process_data(new_data) is obviously the sort of thing I'm missing, but it is not a general solution because :- e.g. 2 | while new_data, environment = get_more_data(source): | process_data(new_data, environment) is something I'm equally likely to want to do, but I can't express it's meaning. Before I resign myself to the inevitable, 'that's the way it is - get used to it', I'd just like to scratch it once. But, before I try walking on very thin ice, I want to ask whether there are expectations of some future changes which address these issues? I note PEP 3000 is silent on this matter, and PEP 315, though related, is not relevant. Ray. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
