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


	is it possible to remove the ':' symbol in the end of lines starting with 'if', 'while' etc? 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 open@ukr.net wrote: > 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.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/d37... Diez On Feb 22, 9:49 am, open@ukr.net wrote: - Hide quoted text - > 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... ;-)) On 22 Feb, 11:49, open@ukr.net wrote: - Hide quoted text - > 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 > 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. - Hide quoted text - open@ukr.net wrote: > 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 Tip: don't try learning perl. I agree the colon is largely redundant, but it's not unreasonable. On 2007-02-22, tac-tics <tactic@gmail.com> wrote: > 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. -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! ... I think I'm at having an overnight visi.com sensation right now!! "Diez B. Roggisch" <d@nospam.web.de> wrote: > open@ukr.net 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