[Python-ideas] Assignments in list/generator expressions

[Paul Moore]

On 11 April 2011 05:10, Eugene Toder <eltoder at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 11:03 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>> Your continued insistence on hearing an explanation why it is missing
>> is beginning to sound more and more like asking when Python stopped
>> beating his wife.
>
> Sorry, I don't get the reference.

The reference is to the "canonical" unanswerable question - "When did
you stop beating your wife?" There is no good answer because the
question is based on an incorrect assumption.

> On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 11:03 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>> (This is not unusual. We get a lot of questions phrased as "why does
>> Python not do X?" Do you think that is a good way to get a discussion
>> started?)
>
> In my defense, I'm actually more interested in the history than in
> adding this feature, as I find the lack of it a pretty small niggle.

As far as history goes, the answer is basically "because no-one
thought of it (or if they did, they didn't care about it enough to
implement it)". You seem to be insisting that there has to be a deeper
reason, though - which is why the discussion of history/motivation is
becoming frustrating - there really isn't anything deeper.

> The discussion was started with specific examples and suggestions, but
> it was not very interesting so far, because many (not all) responses
> are a generic 'new features are bad because they are new' and it's
> very hard to argue with that :-) And I do not dispute the fact that
> new features need a high level of scrutiny.

The *only* interesting part of this thread to me is the discussion
around something like "given" (PEP 3150, which I'd forgotten about).
Oh, and some of the philosophical discussions on readability...

Paul.