9 Aug
2014
9 Aug
'14
2:20 p.m.
On Sat, Aug 9, 2014 at 1:08 AM, Steven D'Aprano
We wouldn't be having these interminable arguments about using sum() to concatenate strings (and lists, and tuples) if the & operator was used for concatenation and + was only used for numeric addition.
But we would probably have a similar discussion about all(). :-) Use of + is consistent with the use of * for repetition. What would you use use for repetition if you use & instead? Compare, for example s + ' ' * (n - len(s)) and s & ' ' * (n - len(s)) Which one is clearer? It is sum() that need to be fixed, not +. Not having sum([a, b]) equivalent to a + b for any a, b pair is hard to justify.