[Tutor] Pythonese/Efficiency/Generalese critique please

[Lee Cullens]

Thanks for the critique Kent

On Jun 4, 2005, at 6:54 PM, Kent Johnson wrote:


> Lee Cullens wrote:
>
>
>> Pythonese/Efficiency/Generalese critique please
>>
>> I'm new to Python and as an exercise created a little utility module.
>> I'm learning from the O'Reilly books and updating that understanding
>> from the 2.4 documentation.
>>
>> I would appreciate any comments you see fit to offer.
>>
>>
>
> I find the nested functions confusing myself; is there a reason  
> they are nested? If they can stand alone I would make them separate  
> top-level functions with names starting with _ to indicate that  
> they are private.
>
>

I did so first for a visual indication of use and relation (eyes of  
the beholder thing) and second to simplify scope.  The latter though  
is a mute point since (I believe) the scope is the same either way,  
and my structure does add a little baggage to the recursion which is  
a negative.   Your point is well taken.


>     dlst = os.listdir(pname)
>     if len(dlst):
>       for dlf in dlst:
>
> There is no need for the if(dlst); if the list is empty the  
> iteration will do nothing. You can write this as
>     for dlf in os.listdir(pname):
>
>

Something I wrestled with - but as I needed to recognize an empty  
directory I needed something to facilitate such ( the for else was no  
help) so that is what I came up with and still don't see a way around.


> Some blank lines would aid readability. For example before each  
> comment in cellpos() and before each elif in the main conditional  
> block.
>
>

Good point.  I've been letting all the bright colors in WingIDE lull  
me into forgetting others may see just b&w.


> Do you know there is a csv module that helps to read and write csv  
> files? It will take care of escaping " in your filenames, if such a  
> thing is possible...
>
>

No, I didn't know.  If I do something like this seriously I'll check  
it out

Thanks again,
Lee C


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