Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time

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From	Raymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Subject	Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time
Date	Tue, 3 May 2011 09:43:41 -0700 (PDT)
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On May 2, 10:04 pm, Stefan Behnel <stefan...@behnel.de> wrote:
> The bad thing about this recipe is that it requires quite a bit of
> background knowledge in order to infer that the code the developer is
> looking at is actually correct. At first sight, it looks like an evil hack,
> and the lack of documentation doesn't help either.

The recipe is cool in the same way that a magic trick is cool.

A practical recipe would use a more general purpose method (perhaps
using finite differences or continued fractions); it would have
documentation and tests; it would accept a regular python function
instead of a string; and it would avoid an unsanitized eval().  But
then it would completely lose its panache, its flourish, and the
pleasant gratification that you get when solving the riddle of how it
works.

We should have a separate thread for the most practical, best
documented, least surprising, and most boring recipe ;-)

Raymond

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Thread

Coolest Python recipe of all time Raymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com> - 2011-05-02 10:33 -0700
  Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time David Monaghan <monaghand.david@gmail.com> - 2011-05-02 21:48 +0100
    Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2011-05-02 14:58 -0600
      Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time David Monaghan <monaghand.david@gmail.com> - 2011-05-02 22:45 +0100
        Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml@behnel.de> - 2011-05-03 07:04 +0200
          Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Raymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com> - 2011-05-03 09:43 -0700
            Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-04 07:54 +1000
            Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2011-05-03 16:10 -0600
        Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2011-05-02 23:17 -0600
        Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2011-05-03 02:00 -0400
          Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2011-05-03 18:29 +1200
            Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2011-05-03 11:49 -0400
            Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Raymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com> - 2011-05-03 09:32 -0700
            Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time geremy condra <debatem1@gmail.com> - 2011-05-03 09:51 -0700
        Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml@behnel.de> - 2011-05-03 08:23 +0200
          Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Raymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com> - 2011-05-03 15:19 -0700
  Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-06 16:59 +0000
    Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time geremy condra <debatem1@gmail.com> - 2011-05-06 10:43 -0700
    Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2011-05-06 12:36 -0600
      Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-07 08:29 +0000
        Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2011-05-07 08:54 -0600
        Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Raymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com> - 2011-05-07 14:02 -0700
    Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2011-05-06 13:38 -0600
    Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Raymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com> - 2011-05-06 12:58 -0700
  RE: Coolest Python recipe of all time Trent Nelson <trent@snakebite.org> - 2011-05-09 02:31 -0700
    Re: Coolest Python recipe of all time Raymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com> - 2011-05-09 14:10 -0700

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