[Python-Dev] Propose to reject PEP 276 -- Simple iterator for ints

[Guido van Rossum]

I've never liked that idea. Down with it!

On 6/16/05, Raymond Hettinger <raymond.hettinger at verizon.net> wrote:
> The principal use case was largely met by enumerate().  From PEP 276's
> rationale section:
> 
> """
> A common programming idiom is to take a collection of objects and apply
> some operation to each item in the collection in some established
> sequential order.  Python provides the "for in" looping control
> structure for handling this common idiom.  Cases arise, however, where
> it is necessary (or more convenient) to access each item in an "indexed"
> collection by iterating through each index and accessing each item in
> the collection using the corresponding index.
> """
> 
> Also, while some nice examples are provided, the proposed syntax allows
> and encourages some horrid examples as well:
> 
>     >>> for i in 3: print i
>     0
>     1
>     2
> 
> The backwards compatability section lists another problematic
> consequence; the following would stop being a syntax error and would
> become valid:
> 
>    x, = 1
> 
> The proposal adds iterability to all integers but silently does nothing
> for negative values.
> 
> A minor additional concern is that floats are not given an equivalent
> capability (for obvious reasons) but this breaks symmetry with
> range/xrange which still accept float args.
> 
> 
> Raymond
> 
> 


-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)