"Terry Reedy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "George Sakkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Still it's hard to explain why four specific python keywords - def, > > del, exec and elif - were chosen to be abbreviated, > > Precedence in other languages and CS usage?
What precedence ? I don't know of another language that uses def or del at least; even C++ which compared to python is much more terse uses "delete" instead of del. And in any case, curly braces for grouping statements is much more prevalent in other languages and CS usage but (fortunately) python chose indentation. > > So, who would object the full-word versions for python 3K ? > > def -> define > > del -> delete > > exec -> execute > > These three I might prefer to keep. > > > elif -> else if > > This one I dislike and would prefer to write out. I never liked it in > whatever else language I first encountered it and still don't. In contrast to the first three changes which would be straightforward, changing "elif" to "else if" would add (a little?) complexity to the parser by allowing "else" to be followed either by a colon (the only choice now) or "if", though I don't think this would be a decisive factor. George -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
