> According to your silly rule the shortest book on a subject would be the > best. Now why is that false?
No, according to the rule, the shorter of two books **containing the same information** would be best. I don't think I'm a zealot. The original quote said "all else equal". Certainly legible code is better than, hence not equal to, illegible code. I would say that having played Python golf once, the complexity of the competitive keystroke-minimizing code is much higher than the complexity of the equivalent sane, readable, maintainable code. (Actually, it also turns out to involve a good deal of coding that isn't in the final source, but let's not go there.) The point is I did NOT say he programs best who *types* least, and I don't believe that. In fact, that's what makes the comparison interesting. I had always thought that Pythonistas type more than Perlists, though I prefer Python anyway. The presumption was based on the fact that Perl (as language and culture) takes delight in saving keystrokes at the expense of clarity ($_ and all that) while Python makes no special effort in that direction. If real world Python code is substantially more terse *despite* this cultural difference, it is a fact worthy of some note. Let me add my voice to those clamoring for Edward to release his code while I'm here, though. mt -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list