On 23Sep2008 19:52, Neal Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: | In hindsight, I am disappointed with the choice of conditional syntax. | I know it's too late to change. The problem is | | y = some thing or other if x else something_else | | When scanning this my eye tends to see the first phrase and only | later notice that it's conditioned on x (or maybe not notice at all!). | Particularly if 'some thing or other' is long or complicated.
Personally, I think this is deliberate (the wordiness and ordering, not the reading difficulty). Plenty of people dislike C's ternary b?x:y operator, presumably for the same reasons. A good coder will present things clearly. For trivial stuff the one line form may be fine, and for longer stuff then this: y = some thing or other \ if x \ else something_else or: if x: y = something or other else: y = something_else should appear. If it's your code, this is up to you. If it's another's, well anyone can write unreadable code... Cheers, -- Cameron Simpson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> DoD#743 http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/ Principles have no real force except when one is well fed. - Mark Twain -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list