Ten rules to becoming a Python community member.

[Steven D'Aprano]

David Monaghan wrote:

> On Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:13:10 -0700 (PDT), rantingrick
> <rantingrick at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>If conciseness is all you seek then perhaps you prefer the following?
>>
>>ORIGINAL: "I used to wear wooden shoes"
>>CONCISE:  "I wore wooden shoes"
> 
>>ORIGINAL: "I have become used to wearing wooden shoes"
>>CONCISE:  "I like wearing wooden shoes"
> 
>>However as you can see much of the rich information is missing.
> 
> Indeed. Neither of your two concise examples has the same meaning of the
> originals.

The second one is considerably different. Consider:

"I have become used to getting up at 3am to be flogged for an hour by my
boss. Between the sleep deprivation and the scar tissue on my back, I
hardly feel a thing any more."

versus 

"I like getting up at 3am to be flogged for an hour by my boss. I get all
tingly in my man-bits, if you know what I mean."

The first case is more subtle. The implication of "I used to wear..." is
that you did back in the past, but no longer do, while "I wore..." has no
such implication. It merely says that in the past you did this, whether you
still do or don't is irrelevant.



-- 
Steven