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Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2013 17:46:59 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: Re: Suggested feature: slice syntax within tuples (or even more generally)?
From: Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com>
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On Thursday, February 14, 2013 4:01:39 PM UTC-6, steph...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, February 14, 2013 1:58:06 PM UTC-5, Ian wrote:
>=20
> [snip: quote noise!]
>=20

Dude! Please trim this quote noise from your posts. I know Google's quoting=
 mechanism is buggy, but dammit man YOU'RE A PROGRAMER! There is no excuse =
for not trimming excessive newlines.

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
 As to your slicing request.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

Anybody who knows me KNOWS that i love consistency! So i'm all for applying=
 a slicing syntax consistently, however, i don't think your approach is the=
 correct approach.=20

To get you going in the correct direction: Ruby uses the  "s..e" and "s...e=
" (where "s" represents the start of the range and "e" represents the end o=
f a range) as syntactic sugar for Range.new(s, e). Two dots create an /incl=
usive/ range and three dots create an /exclusive/ range. Anyway, enough tut=
orials, read the doc:

  http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/Range.html

Now, i am not suggesting that python should adopt the /exact/ syntax of Rub=
y, however, i /am/ suggesting that Ruby is more consistent with the range o=
bject than Python.

In Ruby:

...you can slice arrays with the range:
=20
rb> a =3D [1,2,3,4,5]
rb> a[0..-1]
[1,2,3,4,5]
rb> a[0...-1]
[1,2,3,4]

...you can create a range of integers :

rb> r =3D 1..10=20
rb> r.to_a()
[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]

...you can create a range of chars:

rb> r =3D "a".."d"
rb> r.to_a()
["a", "b", "c", "d"]

...you can use range in a loop:

rb> for x in 0...5;puts "#{x}th iteration";end
0th iteration
1th iteration
2th iteration
3th iteration
4th iteration

...but most importantly, you can do all these things in a consistent manner=
 using a consistent syntax!

Python however has the stupid slice function and then sequence indexing, an=
d no consistency between the two! Plus, the for loop uses the range functio=
n to create "lazy iterators" instead of employing a consistent "range" synt=
ax.

Consistent syntax and consistent application are the biggest issues with Py=
thon ranges as they exist today. That's the starting point.