The case for changing 'for' is weakest, for sure. But 'with' is easy to coerce into the same category as 'import' and 'except' since it already uses 'as'...
On 1/11/07, Phillip J. Eby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At 08:36 AM 1/11/2007 -0800, Guido van Rossum wrote: > >Let me clarify. I have no desire to prevent tuple assignment in with > >statements. But I do think that the tuples could be limited to plain > >names and other tuples (with similar constraints), and those names > >should all be zapped at the end of the clause, like for except. And we > >don't even have to add an extra try/finally to do so, since with > >already *has* a try/finally... > > > >I'm also curious to hear what people think of similarly limiting the > >syntax of the target in all for-loops -- but WITHOUT the zapping of > >the variable at block end. > > > >I think none of these changes would affect reasonably written code; > >the use cases for using variables that are part of other objects are > >too obscure to care. > > Yes, they're obscure. But the symmetry with assignment is pleasing, > nonetheless. It gives me the sense of a "small" language, i.e., one > without nine jillion special cases. > > I've been having to do some Perl hacking this week, and I'm being quite > thoroughly reminded of the joys of how few special cases Python has. :) > > By comparison, Perl is nothing but special cases, as I keep discovering > that some symbol combination I thought would work, either doesn't, or does > something entirely different depending on context. I keep resorting to > using "map" and a few other tricks to find some Python-like uniformity and > composability. > > Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that limiting the assignment targets of > "with" and "for" will turn Python into Perl. I'm just saying that not > having to create different mental categories for their assignment targets > is pleasant. In contrast, the "as" in "except" and "import" seems to > already be a different mental category that occurs seamlessly, whereas > "for" and "with" seem to bunch with "assignment" in my mind. > > But of course all this could just be the peculiarities of my own > mind. We'll see what other people think. > > -- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) _______________________________________________ Python-3000 mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-3000 Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-3000/archive%40mail-archive.com
