On Mar 9, 10:59 am, "BJörn Lindqvist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 9 Mar 2007 02:31:14 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Thanks for the thoughts. > > > > This could be implemented without new syntax: just make your editor > > > recognize some special comments, and apply the highlighting to the > > > following block. By example, > > > > # XXX Remove this when FuruFaifa is fixed to always > > > provide > > > # XXX the names in the same order > > > names.sort() > > > names.reverse() > > > Yes I recognise that we can use existing comments for this purpose, > > and if I was suitably gifted I guess I could try to make the IDE > > recognise these 'special comments', and maybe even work out what block > > they're meant to apply to. Of course I'll still argue that the WIP > > character would be a more elegant, speedy and versatile alternative. > > But you are overloading the ? character for a purpose which it totally > was not meant for. What the character means really depends on what > person you are asking. To me, it means that what precedes it is > something someone or something does not know and wants to know the > answer to. To me, it really does not mean that what follows it is work > in progress. > > Even if I could intuitively tell that a question mark represents a > work in progress, that information is not very useful. Similarly to > the "under construction" animated gifs that were popular on the web in > the mid 90-ties, the symbol does not convey any useful information. > WHY is it a work in progress? Is there something wrong with it? > > ?def foobar(): > do stuff > > The question mark does not leave me any the wiser. Now if you replace > that question mark with a comment: > > # foobar() is buggy because it throws weird exceptions when x = 42. > def foobar(): > do stuff > > That gives me some useful information. > > -- > mvh Björn- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text -
perhaps another character would be preferable. '~' perhaps. As to what you use the WIP character for- in my mind the purpose is to allow an extra type/level of commenting over and above #, which is inherently flexible. I could for example choose to use ? (or ~) for blocks I'm still writing, ?? (or ~~) for blocks that are buggy, and ??? (or ~~~) for blocks that work but could use optimization. It's a commenting shortcut for me as the script's developer and its advantage over # comments are speed or insertion/removal. Ah but I can see I'm not winning anybody over. I shall graciously retire! -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list