On 2 November 2016 at 21:50, David Mertz <mertz@gnosis.cx> wrote:
Even though I really don't want new null-coalescing operators, I really appreciate the ternary operator in Python (or in C).
On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 12:38 PM, Mikhail V <mikhailwas@gmail.com> wrote:
result = a > b ? x : y
is IMHO a syntactical herecy. Such things disgust me from programming. Why on earth one cannot just wrap it in function c = nicefunc(a,b)
The problem here is that the general form isn't ONLY to return 'x' or 'y' but the decide between arbitrary values. Hard-coding the variables into the function loses 90%+ of the point.
So the general function would need a signature like:
c = nicefunc(a, b, x, y)
The problem here is that this call might be:
c = nicefunc(a, b, run_for_hours(), has_side_effects())
We only want ONE of 'x' and 'y' to eagerly evaluate. In the C or Python ternary we get exactly that. Obviously, that also happens in your fully spelled out if/else block too, but that's multiline and needs to setup variables not just be used as an expression.
[Apologies for off-topic one more time] So you say "that's multiline" just as if a multiner is something bad. All evil comes from the wish to write things more compactly. Also what to evaluate or not evaluate lies solely on the compiler/interpreter so that is not what the user must think of. Anyway, I am too far from doing chain attribute selections, but for the above example, a one-liner: if (a > b) : run_for_hours() else has_side_effects() Is this different from above? For me it is way more readable and no need to learn/memorise new operators. Also, *anything* of less then 3 characters as an operator is most likely to be initially a fail, simply because it is hard to *see* it in a mess of code, unlike kewords and well formatted multiliner. Or for example to return non-null of multiple operands: value = not_a_function_but_selector ( a, b, c, d ) Cannot this principle be exposed to attribute selector? As said I am too far from these problematics, still I'll try, though it may be total nonsense I am telling here: with seek_chain(foo.bar.bee.buzz) : name = "got it" I mean do you really need to stick something in the middle of chain, why not leave the whole thing there and let the "seek_chain" do the job (whatever this must be, I don't have an idea) Mikhail