On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 3:13 AM, Steven D'Aprano < ste...@remove.this.cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:26:54 -0800, Brendan Miller wrote: > > > I tend to use constants as a means of avoiding the proliferation of > > magic literals for maintenance reasons... Like say if your example of > > FOO would have been used in 10 places. Maybe it is more pythonic to > > simply denote such a thing as simply a normal variable? > > But it isn't a "normal variable", it's a named constant, or at least it > would be if Python enforced constanticity. Or constantness. Or whatever. > > > That doesn't > > seem to give a hint that it shouldn't be assigned a second time. > > Absolutely. It's rather sad that I can do this: > > import math > math.pi = 3.0 > > I like the ability to shoot myself in the foot, thank you very much, but > I should at least get a warning when I'm about to do so: > > math.PI = 3.0 # use God-like powers to change a constant (OT) You don't need God-like powers to do that. God already did it (it's in the bible somewhere, I don't remember where) And the Indiana state legislature thinks that doing that changing the value of pi is a perfectly legitimate action. (I guess they arrest all circles whose circumfrence:diameter ratio doesn't conform to the new value ???) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill > > > > > > Changing the laws of physics, one fundamental constant at a time-ly y'rs, > > -- > Steven > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list >
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