[Python-ideas] allow line break at operators

[Stephen Hansen]

On 9/3/11 3:33 AM, Yingjie Lan wrote:
> but at least we can have such 'freedom' :)

Freedom is not and never has been, IMHO, a virtue or goal or even desire
in Python. Where it occurs, it is at best a happy coincidence, and even
if that happy coincidence happens often, it is not a design feature, IMHO.

Simplicity and readability are virtues in Python. Freedom is even
declared a vice to be avoided by the Zen, that holy document which
defines all things Pythonic in clear and unambiguously absolute terms*.

Looking over this whole thread at the various examples -- they add
complication (a vice!). Complication to the parser, complication to the
language itself and worse, understanding of code (as your head has to
parse things too), all for what?

So you don't have to use parens, which quite explicitly (another
virtue!) do the job, to wrap around a long expression? Escaping newlines
is arguably a bit on the ugly side (a vice!), so maybe the proposal has
a little weight there, but since you can just avoid that by using
parens, that's pretty much nullified. (Since it is also a virtue to
offer only the Dutch way of doing things -- at least without hiding the
alternatives in modules with a little bit of shame -- and this is
clearly a case of the Dutch liking limited use of grouping parens).

There just isn't even vaguely enough justification based on
Python-virtues (readability, simplicity, explicitness, things like that)
to even kind of make it worth the complication.

-- 

   Stephen Hansen
   ... Also: Ixokai
   ... Mail: me+list/python (AT) ixokai (DOT) io
   ... Blog: http://meh.ixokai.io/

* Obvious exaggeration :P

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