On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 5:24 PM, Alexander Belopolsky < alexander.belopolsky@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 7:57 PM, Andrew Barnert via Python-ideas < python-ideas@python.org> wrote:
If this is going to be a keyword rather than a symbol, it really has to read like English, or at least like abbreviated English,
I am -1 on this whole idea, but the keyword that comes to mind is "def":
x def []
may be read as x DEFaulting to [].
'def' is currently short for 'define', which would be too confusing. Spelling out 'default' isn't so bad, though: self.x = x default [] And if it's going to be that long anyway, we might as well just put a `default` function in the builtins: self.x = default(x, []) I actually really like 'otherwise', but it's certainly not brief: self.x = x if x is not None else [] self.x = x otherwise [] That said, it's not used *that* often either, so maybe it's acceptable. - Jeff