[Tutor] Are you allowed to shoot camels? [kinda OT]
Jeff Shannon
jeff at ccvcorp.com
Fri Feb 4 22:23:06 CET 2005
Smith, Jeff wrote:
> IMHO, if/elif/else statements are far more abused than either switch or
> ternary but I certainly wouldn't argue they should be removed from the
> language.
IMHO, if it's true that if/elif/else statements are more abused than
ternaries, then it's only because they're *used* far more often than
ternaries. I'd say that the percentage of uses which could count as
abuse is *far* higher for ternary than for if/elif/else.
And I avoid (and recommend against) Python's "a and b or c" trick for
similar reasons -- it *is* a trick. A 'real' ternary operator is
confusing enough; this trick is more readable (words instead of opaque
symbols) but more difficult to write correctly given the constraints
on 'a'...
Maybe I'm just weird, but I just don't find so much benefit to putting
*everything* in-line. Occassionally it improves readability, but more
often it obscures and obfuscates.
Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International
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