(-CC python-dev)
On 30/04/2007 5.29, Jim Jewett wrote:
> Rationale for Removing Explicit Line Continuation
>
> A terminal "\" indicates that the logical line is continued on the
> following physical line (after whitespace).
>
> Note that a non-terminal "\" does not have this meaning, even if the
> only additional characters are invisible whitespace. (Python depends
> heavily on *visible* whitespace at the beginning of a line; it does
> not otherwise depend on *invisible* terminal whitespace.) Adding
> whitespace after a "\" will typically cause a syntax error rather
> than a silent bug, but it still isn't desirable.
>
> The reason to keep "\" is that occasionally code looks better with
> a "\" than with a () pair.
>
> assert True, (
> "This Paren is goofy")
>
> But realistically, that paren is no worse than a "\". The only
> advantage of "\" is that it is slightly more familiar to users of
> C-based languages. These same languages all also support line
> continuation with (), so reading code will not be a problem, and
> there will be one less rule to learn for people entirely new to
> programming.
I was in favor of one of the alternatives that were proposed here: line
continuation through indentation:
a = 123 *
(12 + 4) / 8
assert True,
"No goofy paren" +
", dude"
... and don't tell me that you need a character there because using just
indentation is hard to read :)
Even if you don't want to champion this solution in your PEP, you should at
least list it among the alternatives.
--
Giovanni Bajo
Develer S.r.l.
http://www.develer.com
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