Code formatting question: conditional expression

[Ben Finney]

"Diez B. Roggisch" <deets at nospam.web.de> writes:

> excessblk = None
> if total > P.BASE:
>     excessblk = ...
>
> You don't lose any vertical space,

I don't see vertical space as such a scarce resource; we don't have an
imminent newline shortage, to my knowledge. I value it far lower than,
say, local readability.

> and it's much more readable IMHO.

On the basis of local readability, then, I agree that a multi-line
conditional expression is far less quickly comprehensible than a normal
multi-line ‘if’ statement. Assigning the default value of ‘None’ first
(if that's the default) is also good style IMO.

-- 
 \        “Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?” “Wuh, I think |
  `\   so, Brain, but wouldn't anything lose its flavor on the bedpost |
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Ben Finney