Augmented Assignement (was: Re: PEP scepticism)

[stevencooper at isomedia.com]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2001 at 07:22:19PM +0100, phil hunt wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Jun 2001 16:13:29 GMT, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
> >Bernhard Herzog <bh at intevation.de> writes:
> >
> >> Augmented assignment doesn't actually offer anything that couldn't have
> >> been done with explicit method calls, at least as far as in-place
> >> modification is concerned, because under the covers it actually is a
> >> method call. Explicit is better than implicit.
> >
> >Sorry, I don't understand why people can seriously argue *against*
> >augmented assignment.  It just baffles me.  What kind of Spartan
> >upbringing did you have?  Scheme?  Really, I just don't get it.  This
> >was by far the most asked-for feature ever!  And that quote "explicit
> >is better than implicit" quote is pretty tired by now.  It can be used
> >against a whole lot of Python features.
> 
> Indeed, the reductio ad absurdum of it is that all coding should
> be done in assembler, or at least, nothing more high-level than C.

Sorry, Lisp/Scheme is a much better comparison than assembler.  It is
certainly a high level language, but possesses the fewest possible
number of constructs.  I think it has its merits.  The power comes
from an ability to layer and combine, not from the quantity of
supported operators.

I doubt experienced Lisp programmers are any less productive than
experienced Ada programmers, despite the obvious imbalance in the size
of their feature sets.  I've been programming in C++ for many years.
Believe me I'd cheer if they eliminated "+=" and all the other
redundancies that merely save keystrokes.

Frankly I don't think there's anything wrong with Python stagnating if
it is or becomes good enough.  I personally love Python because it is
minimalist and elegant.  I'll be disappointed if it changes.

Regards,
Steve

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 Steve Cooper          Redmond, WA