Request for feedback on my first Python program

[Jack Diederich]

On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 12:02:56PM -0400, Aahz wrote:
> In article <mailman.1054429562.11692.python-list at python.org>,
> Sean Legassick  <sean at datamage.net> wrote:
> >In message <slrnbdeevn.694.andrew-usenet at athena.jcn.srcf.net>, Andrew 
> >Walkingshaw <andrew-usenet at lexical.org.uk> writes
> >>
> >>def isMeaningful(line):
> >>    if line != "" and line[0] != "#":
> >>        return True
> >>    else:
> >>        return False
> >
> >Yuck!
> >
> >def isMeaningful(line):
> >     return line != "" and line[0] != "#";
> >
> >No offence intended, but I've seen this too often in real code not to 
> >point out its redundancy here.
> 
> It is *NOT* redundant; it is making clear that True/False are the only
> possible return values.  With your rewrite, reading and understanding
> the code is necessary to clarify the intent.

+1 for good advice
 
If the docstring says "returns true if some_condition, false otherwise"
invariably someone will look at the code and use the side effect that it
isn't returning 1/0 for evil purposes[1].  reversing the order of compairson
shouldn't break any code, so it is good defensive programming to always
explicity return a bool.

The snippet in question will always return a bool, but IMO this is rarely
the case so it is best to be explicit.

-jack

[1] shoot the person who depended on the undocumented side effect