On 2/7/11 5:57 PM, Jeff Johnson wrote:
> I don't know. That just struck me as an interesting quote. I find
> myself thinking about it!
>
> Sometimes it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.
When you think about it, asking forgiveness instead of permission is probably
human
nature. Look at speed limits, and the tendency for even otherwise law-abiding
citizens to break them, even by a little, because it is safer to go with the
flow.
For some reason I thought this was part of the Zen of Python, but I just
checked (by
typing 'import this' into a python interpreter) and it isn't, but it comes from
the
Python coding style of not doing this:
def getChildName(obj):
if obj and getattr(obj, "child", None) is not None:
return obj.child.name
return None
But this:
def getChildName(obj):
try:
return obj.child
except (ValueError, AttributeError):
return None
You don't test all possible things that can go wrong first, you just try to do
what
you want to do, and catch expected exceptions and handle them. Asking for
forgiveness
makes the expected cases execute faster.
And yes, I agree with Ted and Ed that Lou should just install source control to
his
machine without telling anyone at first. But if he isn't allowed to install
software
to his machine, he really does need to consider walking! :)
Paul
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