In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Georg Brandl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> > One of my rules is, always program like the language actually has a Boolean > > type, even if it doesn't. That means, never assume that arbitrary values > > can be interpreted as true or false, always put in an explicit comparison > > if necessary so it's obvious the expression is a Boolean. > > You can do that, but it's not considered Pythonic. And it might be > ineffective. > > Other than in PHP, Python has clear rules when an object of a builtin type > is considered false (i.e. when it's empty). So why not take advantage of > this? I don't know whether she would welcome this or not, but here I provide an archive link to a classic post by Laura Creighton on this matter: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/2de5e1c8384c0360 It's lengthy but very readable, and for me it has that quality of exposition where you feel at first reading as though you had already known all that -- even if you really hadn't. But I don't know where she is today, or the Python she was writing about. Donn Cave, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
