The rap against "while True:" loops
Steven D'Aprano
steve at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au
Sun Oct 11 04:01:51 EDT 2009
On Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:15:21 +0000, kj wrote:
> I use "while True"-loops often, and intend to continue doing this "while
> True", but I'm curious to know: how widespread is the injunction against
> such loops? Has it reached the status of "best practice"?
Such an injunction probably made more sense back in the days of single-
tasking computers. Back in ancient days when dinosaurs walked the Earth,
and I was programming in THINK Pascal on Apple Macintosh System 6, I'd go
into nervous palpitations writing the equivalent of "while True" because
if I got it wrong, I'd lock up the machine and need to hit the power
button. (At least if I was still testing in the THINK Pascal IDE, and had
the whole range of debugging options turned on, I could interrupt it.)
These days, I must admit I still have a tiny little shiver whenever I
write "while True", but that's entirely irrational and I pay no attention
to it.
--
Steven
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