[Python-Dev] accumulator display syntax

[Jack Jansen]

On 17-okt-03, at 22:20, Skip Montanaro wrote:
> All the more reason not to like this.  Why not just define the 
> generator
> function and call it?
>
> While Perl sprouts magical punctuation, turning its syntax into line 
> noise,
> Python seems to be sprouting multiple function-like things.  We have
>
>     * functions
>     * unbound methods
>     * bound methods
>     * generator functions
>     * iterators (currently invisible via syntax, but created by 
> calling a
>       generator function?)
>     * instances magically callable via __call__
>
> and now this new (rather limited) syntax for creating iterators.

And you even forget lambda:-)

I agree with Skip here: there's all this magic that crept into Python 
since
2.0 (approximately) that really hampers readability to novices. And here
I mean novices in the wide sense of the word, i.e. including myself 
(novice
to the new concepts). Some of these look like old concepts but are 
really
something completely different (generators versus functions), some are
really little more than keystroke savers (list comprehensions).
--
Jack Jansen, <Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman