[Python-Dev] Informal educator feedback on PEP 572 (was Re: 2018 Python Language Summit coverage, last part)

[Rob Cliffe]

On 03/07/2018 06:47, Tim Peters wrote:
> [Rob Cliffe]
> > It's late to raise this,
>
> By months, yes ;-)
>
> > but what exactly are the objections to the syntax
> >         expr -> name  # or variations such as  expr => name
> > instead of
> >         name := expr
>
> >
> > The PEP mentions that this syntax does not have a problem that "as"
> > does, but does not list any downsides of it.
>
> My guess:  it probably strikes too many as "excessive novelty",  
>  These are assignment expressions.  Python's assignment statements put 
> the target at the left.  Why change that?  ":=" is used for assignment 
> in many more other languages than "->" is.  Why fight that?
>
> > It conforms to left-to-right evaluation, where name:=expr does not.
>
> ?  Only "expr" is evaluated, so left-to-right seems irrelevant here.  
> The "evaluation" of a simple name as a binding target is a no-op (no 
> code is generated).  If you really do see this as a wart anyway, then 
> it's positively a Good Thing that it's exactly the same "wart" as in 
> Python's assignment statements.
>
> > It (I would argue) reduces the asymmetry of the first use of a
> > sub-expression in cases such as
> >     [ ( (f(x) -> y)**2, y**3, y**4) for x in iterable ]
> >  vs
> >     [ ( (y := f(x))**2, y**3, y**4) for x in iterable ]
> > because the first "y" is closer to the way it is used, viz "**2".
>
> The first form reads a little better to me too, but not a lot better.  
> The problem I have with variations of this example on its own (which 
> comes up surprisingly often with minor changes) is that it's clearer 
> spelled today via
>
>     [(y**2, y**3, y**4) for y in map(f, iterable)]
>
> Spelling that with either form of assignment expression reads 
> significantly worse than that to my eyes
>
> But more importantly, it's expected that assignment expressions will 
> be used _most_ often to make some common `if` and `while` patterns 
> briefer.  Hardly all. Our eyes are already trained to "look at the far 
> right end" for the value being tested, and, e.g.,
>
>     while data := sock.recv():
>
> preserves that.  Especially in code that doesn't _always_ use 
> assignment expressions in such contexts (which is likely all 
> significant blobs of code), it would be visually jarring to have to 
> "sometimes look in the middle instead" to extract the important part of:
>
>     while sockrecv() -> data:
>
> "Look to the left for the name, look to the right for the value" is 
> the rule for assignment statements, assignment expressions, and `for` 
> loop targets.
>
> But there's no "QED" here because this isn't a deductive science.  The 
> final answer is "because that's what Guido liked best" ;-)
Thanks, Tim, for a thoughtful answer.
Don't get me wrong, I feel quite happy with ":=".  Perhaps you have 
managed to articulate some thoughts that were buried in my 
subconscious.  It's just that I couldn't come up with any rational 
objections to "->".
Rob Cliffe
>
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