On // and /, I neglected to mention that in Python 2.4 you can already use / for real division in any file where the top line imports from future: from __future__ import division Andrew Harrington wrote:
As I gear up to write or translate lessons for Crunchy Frog, I would like feedback on one general issue: // -- the new integer division operator.
// is already legal in Python 2.4, though / still means the same thing for integers. That is to change in Python 2.5, that is already in alpha 2: / as integer division will able to be set to mean the old operator or always mean real division (I forget which is the default in 2.5).
I think this is an excellent change in Python. I would encourage using // for integer division in all newly written lessons. There is the issue in 2.4 that you still have to go through an extra cast if you want real division, x = 5 y = 3 real_quotient = float(x)/y
but there is nothing for that at the moment
-- Andrew N. Harrington Computer Science Department Undergraduate Program Director Loyola University Chicago http://www.cs.luc.edu/~anh 512B Lewis Towers (office) Office Phone: 312-915-7982 Snail mail to Lewis Towers 416 Dept. Fax: 312-915-7998 820 North Michigan Avenue aharrin@luc.edu Chicago, Illinois 60611