Py3K idea: why not drop the colon?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 10:37:08 -0600, Michael Hobbs wrote:

> The FAQ says that the colon increases 
> readability, but I'm skeptical. The indentation seems to provide more 
> than enough of a visual clue as to where the if conditional ends.

and then in a later post:
> Like I said in that paragraph, removing the colon wouldn't seem to 
> degrade readability *that much*, if at all.

A little bit of skepticism is a wonderful thing, but in this particular
case, your "seems to provide" and "wouldn't seem to" are beaten quite
comprehensibly by the actual usability testing performed by the ABC
Project. (See Robert Kern's post earlier in this thread.)

The world seems to be flat, the sun appears to rotate around the Earth,
and mushrooms look like they are more closely related to plants than to
animals, but none of these things are actually the case.

When you've done your own usability testing, comparable to that already
done, then please feel free to let us know whether the evidence matches
your intuitions.


-- 
Steven.