"Skip Montanaro" <skip / pobox.com> wrote in message news:mailman.1010073787.6869.python-list / python.org... > > Alex> E.g., consider: > > Alex> A) "I don't ever write 'x+=23' -- I grew up with 'x = x + 23' and that's > Alex> good enough for me" > > Alex> B) "I don't ever write 'd.setdefault(key, def)' -- I grew up with > Alex> 'if not d.has_key(key): d[key] = def' and that's good enough for me" > > Alex> C) "I don't ever write '[x for x in l if isok(x)]' -- I grew up with > Alex> 'filter(isok, l)' and that's good enough for me" > > Alex> (and so on, and so forth). > > You forgot: > > D) "I don't ever write 'print >> sys.stderr, "divide by zero!"' -- I > grew up with 'sys.stderr.write("divide by zero!\n")' and that's good > enough for me". Yep, you CAN change the latter part of each of these assertions into "because this specific newfangled addition is an abomination in the eye of all right-thinking people":-). Personally, I'd only do it for [D], of course. Alex