On Tue, May 1, 2018 at 12:30 AM, Mark Shannon wrote:
List comprehensions ------------------- The PEP uses the term "simplifying" when it really means "shortening". One example is stuff = [[y := f(x), x/y] for x in range(5)] as a simplification of stuff = [(lambda y: [y,x/y])(f(x)) for x in range(5)]
Now try to craft the equivalent that captures the condition in an if: results = [(x, y, x/y) for x in input_data if (y := f(x)) > 0] Do that one with a lambda function.
IMO, the "simplest" form of the above is the named helper function.
def meaningful_name(x): t = f(x) return t, x/t
[meaningful_name(i) for i in range(5)]
Is longer, but much simpler to understand.
Okay, but what if there is no meaningful name? It's easy to say "pick a meaningful name". It's much harder to come up with an actual name that is sufficiently meaningful that a reader need not go look at the definition of the function.
I am also concerned that the ability to put assignments anywhere allows weirdnesses like these:
try: ... except (x := Exception) as x: ...
with (x: = open(...)) as x: ...
We've been over this argument plenty, and I'm not going to rehash it.
def do_things(fire_missiles=False, plant_flowers=False): ... do_things(plant_flowers:=True) # whoops!
If you want your API to be keyword-only, make it keyword-only. If you want a linter that recognizes unused variables, get a linter that recognizes unused variables. Neither of these is the fault of the proposed syntax; you could just as easily write this: do_things(plant_flowers==True) but we don't see myriad reports of people typing too many characters and blaming the language. ChrisA