Nov. 6, 2009
5:43 a.m.
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 5:02 PM, Raymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com> wrote:
Forgot to post the code. It is short, fast, and easy. It is explicit about handing the case with an empty input. And it is specific about which value it returns (always the first iterated value; not an arbitrary one). There's no guessing about what it does. It gets the job done.
I'm trying to take this suggestion in the best possible light, which is that you honestly think I didn't read past Chapter 3 of the Python Tutorial, and I am therefore in fact unfamiliar with function definitions.
I read Raymond's suggestion rather as a question: why bother with a tedious, multi-year process, when a three-line function will achieve exactly the same? Regards, Martin