On Wed, Oct 22, 2003, Guido van Rossum wrote:
I think that for reductions the gains are less clear. The initializer for the result variable and the call that updates its are no longer boilerplate, because they vary for each use; plus the name of the result variable should be chosen carefully because it indicates what kind of result it is (e.g. a sum or product). So, leaving out the condition for now, the pattern or idiom is:
<result> = <initializer> for <variable> in <iterable>: <result> = <expression>
(Where <expression> uses <result> and <variable>.)
Actually, even that doesn't quite capture the expressiveness needed, because <expression> needs in some cases to be a sequence of statements and there needs to be an opportunity for a finalizer to run after the for loop (e.g. average()). -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ "It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code." --Bill Harlan