On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:26:05 -0800, Mensanator wrote: >> The second deviation is that since most names are constants, > > Really? Does that mean you don't use literals, to save the time required > to convert them to integers? Isn't that done at compile time? > > So, instead of doing the Collatz Conjecture as > > while a>1: > f = gmpy.scan1(a,0) > if f>0: > a = a >> f > else: > a = a*3 + 1 > > You would do this? > > zed = 0 > one = 1 > two = 2 > twe = 3 > while a>one: > f = gmpy.scan1(a,zed) > if f>zed: > a = a >> f > else: > a = a*twe + one > > Does this really save any time?
There are some people who might argue that using *any* magic constants in code is wrong, and that *all* such values should be declared as a constant. It's easy to take the mickey out of such an extreme position: zed = 0 # in case we need to redefine 0 as something else one = 1 # likewise two = 3 # changed from 2 to 3 to reflect the end of the Mayan calendar # The following is guaranteed to pass unless the world is ending. assert one+one == two-zed -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
