List comprehensions' ugliness (Was: Re: How to explain exactly what "def" does?)

[jerf at compy.attbi.com]

On Thu, 06 Feb 2003 06:26:31 +0000, jer wrote:

> maxA = max([x.a for x in l])
> allBs = [x.b for x in l]
> maxAll = [max(x.a, x.b, x.c) for x in l] 
> oddSums = [x.a+x.b+x.c for x in l if x.a % 2] 
> stupidSerialization = "\n".join([','.join(x.a, x.b, x.c) for x in l])

It seems Pan "helpfully" decided to re-wrap that series for me. The above
shows the five functions that were supposed to be shown. Plus I'd like to
add

-----

a = "some serialized string as in stupidSerialization"
structs = [SomeStruct(*(x.split(",")) for x in a.split("\n")]

-----

The only thing that really puts that last line a little over the edge is
the use of the semi-obscure (but kick-ass) asterisk syntax, but for me it
still says nicely in one line what would take a lot more in any other form.