On 6/23/06, Edward C. Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Python is a beautiful simple language with a rich standard library. > Python has done fine without a switch statement up to now. Guido left it > out of the original language for some reason (my guess is simplicity). > Why is it needed now? What would be added next: do while or goto? The > urge to add syntax should be resisted unless there is a high payoff > (such as yield). > > There are much better ways for the developers to spend their time and > energy (refactoring os comes to mind). > > Please keep Python simple. > > -1 on the switch statement.
I agree. IMHO switch is a useless statement which can cause many problems in any language. It misleads programmers to dispatch in the wrong way. If you have switch with < 5 cases, an if-elif chain fits just fine. If the switch is larger use a dictionary that maps values to functions. In C, many times a switch block starts small (40 lines) but grows as the number of values to dispatch on increases. Soon it becomes a 500 line monstrosity that is impossible to refactor because variables from the enclosing space is used frivolously. I don't get the speed argument either. Who cares that if-elif-chains are O(n) and switch O(1)? If n > 10 you are doing something wrong anyway. I don't think I have ever seen in any language a switch construct that, barring speed concerns, wouldn't be better written using any other dispatch mechanism than switch. -- mvh Björn _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
