Hi everyone, In Python, the humble colon (:) has multiples uses: 1. as a signal to indentation increase, signaling a block of code, such as 1a) for function or class definitions 1b) for while/for/if/elif/else blocks 1c) for try/except/finally blocks In these cases, the majority opinion (to which I subscribe) is that using a colon increases readability. I am NOT suggesting to removing the colon in those instances. However, the colon has also some other uses. 2. in slices [a:b:c] 3. in dict assignments {a:b} 4. in lambda assignments (lambda x: x+1) I would argue that, in these last three examples, there might be better choices. (some of these choices have been inspired by reading http://www.resolversystems.com/documentation/index.php/Differences_Between_R...) I don't expect the following suggestions to immediately convince everyone (or anyone!) ... but, at least they will be on record. Slices: --------- I would argue that, the usual slicing notation would be more readable if it were as follows: [a -> b; c] Thus [1:10:2] would become [1 -> 10; 2] [1:10] would become [1 -> 10] The "shorter" combinations would not gain in terms of readability; they would be as follows: [ :10 : 2] would become [10; 2] [ :10] would become [10;] [:: -1] would become [; -1] [:] would become [;] If such a change were to be made, an second slicing notation, *with a different meaning*, could be introduced: [a => b; c] This would be an inclusive range, i.e. [a => b] is equivalent to [a -> b+1] dict assignments ------------------------ Here again, I would argue that using "->" instead of ":" would make the code more readable - at least for beginners. numbers = {'one' -> 1, 'two' -> 2} instead of numbers = {'one': 1, 'two': 2} lambda assignments --------------------------- Once again, same choice. lambda x -> x+1 is, I think, more readable than lambda x: x+1 (but perhaps the last two [dicts and lambda] largely depends on the font choice...) ====== Other considerations: If "->" were to be adopted for dict or lambda assignments, then the "naturalness" of their choice for slices would be reduced. An alternative might be inspired from the mathematical notation [a, ..., b; c] I realize that this is "much" longer than [a: b: c]. Final comment: I have seen other alternatives for simple slices suggested in the past such as [a..b] and [a...b] which would be the equivalent of [a->b] and [a=>b]; however, the extra "." might sometimes be difficult to read, whereas the difference between "->" and "=>" is much easier to see. Cheers, André