Re: Question mark in variable and function names
 

Andr? N?ss wrote:

>
> One thing I liked about Lisp was the ability to use the question mark
> (and the exclamation mark) in function names. I found this
> particularily useful when checking boolean properties of a object like
> for example myObj.isContextSet. It just feels so much more natural to
> write myObj.contextSet?
>
> I also found it neat that destructive operations were clearly marked
> with !.


I guess any programmer who likes LISP has an extra gear in their gear box (perhaps), but I think non-alphanumeric symbols in names reduce the readability. We live in a world of text where words have letters in them, and punctuation means something different. When I see punctuation my brain goes "STOP. ABSORB SOME LOGIC BEFORE PROCEEDING."

sorry for the caps, but to my mind's eye punctuation symbols in names is like e-mail in all caps.


> Is there anything preventing this from being possible in Python?
>


Maybe the desire to have visually clean code?

I think underneath it all some Python programmers really _miss_ the semicolon, and are dying to work more punctuation into the language to make it seem more complicated. Then it will look more impressive.

<tongue_in_cheek />




Eric
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
domainNot="@something.com"
domainIs=domainNot.replace("s","z")
ePrefix="".join([chr(ord(x)+1) for x in "do"])
mailMeAt=ePrefix+domainIs
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Re: Question mark in variable and function names
 

On Wed, 6 Oct 2004 21:11:41 -0800, Eric Pederson wrote:

> Andr? N?ss wrote:
>>
>> One thing I liked about Lisp was the ability to use the question mark
>> (and the exclamation mark) in function names. I found this
>> particularily useful when checking boolean properties of a object like
>> for example myObj.isContextSet. It just feels so much more natural to
>> write myObj.contextSet?
>>
>> I also found it neat that destructive operations were clearly marked
>> with !.

> I guess any programmer who likes LISP has an extra gear in their gear box (perhaps), but I think non-alphanumeric symbols in names reduce the readability. We live in a world of text where words have letters in them, and punctuation means something different. When I see punctuation my brain goes "STOP. ABSORB SOME LOGIC BEFORE PROCEEDING."

Yes, so do I. I /hate/ that convention (of *SCHEME*, not Lisp, note!)

[Not to mention that it's not pronounceable]

--
Malum est consilium quod mutari non potest -- Publilius Syrus

(setq reply-to
(concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(#\@) "actrix.gen.nz>"))