This comes after a small discussion in another Python newsgroup. Haskell supports a where clause, that's syntactic sugar that allows you to define things like this:
p = a / b where a = 20 / len(c) b = foo(d) That means: a = 20 / len(c) b = foo(d) p = a / b I don't know how much good this syntax can be in my Python programs, probably I have to use it some time to judge. In the Python shell you usally have to use a bottom-up style of programming, while a where may allow you a more top-down too. I can enjoy this. Compared to Haskell a possible problem may from mutability, in Haskell often the order of the operations isn't important (it's only/mostly significant during I/O), while in Python is generally important. The interpreter has to look ahead, to use such 'where', because the point of 'where' is to allow the programmer with such inversions. In Python you probably want to put a : after where. But that Haskell syntax also enjoys having where too indented, this is less easy (or impossible?) to mix with the usual Python syntax. Bye, bearophile -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list