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From: Devin Jeanpierre <jeanpierreda@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:32:08 -0500
Subject: Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types!
To: Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu>
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On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 9:25 AM, Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> wrote:
> The only time I've naively pined for such a thing is when
> misapplying C idioms for finding a minimum value.
>
> Python provides an excellent min implementation to use instead.

min can be a little inconvenient. As soon as anything complicated has
to be done during the min expression, you need to switch to using
something else for sanity's sake. In that vein, I do actually
sometimes use float('inf') (for numbers), or a custom max/min object.

----

Silly and completely nonserious addendum:

Forgive me, I have spoken in error! min is the one true way, for you
can still do it with a little wrangling, as follows:

    @operator.itemgetter(1)
    @min
    @apply
    def closest_object():
        for x in xrange(board_width)
            for y in xrange(board_height):
                try:
                    entity = board.get_entity(x, y)
                except EntityNotFound:
                    pass
                else:
                    yield distance(player.pos, entity.pos), entity


Please don't kill me.

-- Devin