is it possible to remove the ':' symbol in the end of lines starting with 'if', 'while' etc?

O

openopt

I don't know to which forum should I post the message
I hope someone related to the Python kernel development will read &
consider the idea
I'm (a former? meanwhile not sure) MATLAB user & it's very annoing
typing each time for example
while i:
print i
...
instead of
while i
print i
...
of course if all is written in a single line ':' I guess should not be
omited

Thank you for you suggestions.
Sorry my bad English.

WBR, Dmitrey
 
D

Diez B. Roggisch

I don't know to which forum should I post the message
I hope someone related to the Python kernel development will read &
consider the idea
I'm (a former? meanwhile not sure) MATLAB user & it's very annoing
typing each time for example
while i:
print i
...
instead of
while i
print i
...
of course if all is written in a single line ':' I guess should not be
omited

Won't happen. There have been plenty of discussions about this, and while
technically not necessary, the colon is usually considered "optically
pleasing". So - it will stay.

See - one of a bazillion - discussions here:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp...q=python+colon+remove&rnum=1#35581ad9698e28f5


Diez
 
F

Flavio

I don't know to which forum should I post the message
I hope someone related to the Python kernel development will read &
consider the idea
I'm (a former? meanwhile not sure) MATLAB user & it's very annoing
typing each time for example
while i:
print i
...
instead of
while i
print i
...
of course if all is written in a single line ':' I guess should not be
omited

Thank you for you suggestions.
Sorry my bad English.

WBR, Dmitrey

Think on the bright side:

you have to type ":" at the beginning of loop and conditional blocks,
but you don't have to type "end" at the end... you are still saving
two strokes...
;-))
 
J

justme

I don't know to which forum should I post the message
I hope someone related to the Python kernel development will read &
consider the idea
I'm (a former? meanwhile not sure) MATLAB user & it's very annoing
typing each time for example
while i:
print i
...
instead of
while i
print i
...
of course if all is written in a single line ':' I guess should not be
omited

Thank you for you suggestions.
Sorry my bad English.

WBR, Dmitrey

Hi

Just a thought...
I've also just made the jump from Matlab to Python (or am straddling
the two at the moment!) and I find the ':' really useful for
delimiting blocks of code. Took a while to get used to it but I reckon
it helps me explain my code to non-programmers as they can see the
blocks I use.

Al
 
O

openopt

Think on the bright side:
you have to type ":" at the beginning of loop and conditional blocks,
but you don't have to type "end" at the end... you are still saving
two strokes...
;-))

No, there no profits:
instead of 'end' I must type <shift>, ':' and backspace in the end of
block - so 3 keypress are used, same as 'end'
Of course Python is much more better in syntax vs C/C++ but I would
prefere tcl-style or caml-style
x = fun arg1 arg2 ... argn
however, in tcl annoing things are 'set' and 'expr'
and in ocaml '<-' and 'let x = ... in' - too many keypress instead of
'='
but their func calls still is better then fun(arg1, arg2, ..., argn)
and help _something_ or which _something_ in MATLAB is much more
better then help(_something_) in Python
the only bad thing in MATLAB (+absence of x = fun arg1 arg2 ... argn
call) is indexing arrays by () instead of [] - holding shift key
dozens times per day is very unconvinient.
And in Python vs MATLAB is very unconvinient arrays creation.

I'm very afraid of proposition that I noticed at
http://wiki.python.org/moin/SummerOfCode
Base multidimensional array type for Python core
Student: KarolLangner
Mentor: Travis E. Oliphant
I don't know about anyone mentioned but I'm not sure this is a good
idea to hire ordinary student for such important thing.
And writing 'dimarray(...)' dozens times per day is much more bad than
x = matrix('...'), x = array([...]) or, of course, MATLAB-style x = [1
2 3]
I guess it should 10 times more think about the array and make it once
and forever - Python already has some array-related classes and all
with syntax much more bad than MATLAB. I guess there should be only 2
types: one for storing data in convinient way without reallocating
(something like C++ STL vector<>) and one for quick calculations
(something like C++ valarray).
WBR, Dmitrey.
 
J

James Stroud

I don't know to which forum should I post the message
I hope someone related to the Python kernel development will read &
consider the idea
I'm (a former? meanwhile not sure) MATLAB user & it's very annoing
typing each time for example
while i:
print i
...
instead of
while i
print i
...
of course if all is written in a single line ':' I guess should not be
omited

Thank you for you suggestions.
Sorry my bad English.

WBR, Dmitrey

Its a compromise in that python has way-less of this kind of cruft than
a lot of other languages.

James
 
T

tac-tics

Tip: don't try learning perl.

I agree the colon is largely redundant, but it's not unreasonable.
 
G

Grant Edwards

Tip: don't try learning perl.

I agree the colon is largely redundant, but it's not
unreasonable.

A certain amount of redundancy in languages (artificial or
natrual) is a good thing. It makes error detection and
correction far easier.
 
H

Hendrik van Rooyen

Diez B. Roggisch said:
(e-mail address removed) wrote:

8< ---------------- request to remove colon ----------------------
Won't happen. There have been plenty of discussions about this, and while
technically not necessary, the colon is usually considered "optically
pleasing". So - it will stay.

It is also used by text editors to make indentation of the next line happen...

- Hendrik
 

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