On Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:25:25 +0000, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > Or they've been writing Python code since before version 2.2 when True > and False were introduced, and so they are used to the "while 1" idiom > and never lost the habit.
That would be me. As per a now-ancient suggestion on this mailing list (I believe it was by Tim Peters), I've also been known to use a non-empty, literal Python string as a self-documenting, forever-True value in the typical loop-and-a- half cnstruct: while "the temperature is too big": temperature = get_temperature() if temperature <= threshold: break process_temperature(temperature) This way, even though the loop condition is buried inside the loop (which could be longer than four lines), it is apparent as soon as I encounter the loop. With the advent of the "with" statement, though, these loops are slowly disappearing. -- Dan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list