Path: csiph.com!news.swapon.de!newsfeed.fsmpi.rwth-aachen.de!newsfeed.straub-nv.de!feeds.phibee-telecom.net!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed8.news.xs4all.nl!nzpost1.xs4all.net!not-for-mail
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2015 09:36:23 -0500
From: Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com>
To: python-list@python.org
Subject: Re: Strange location for a comma
In-Reply-To: <ms9fi4$4a7$1@ger.gmane.org>
References: <55e83afb$0$3157$426a74cc@news.free.fr> <55e83ce3$0$3327$426a74cc@news.free.fr> <ms9fi4$4a7$1@ger.gmane.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Precedence: list
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Message-ID: <mailman.69.1441293213.8327.python-list@python.org>
Lines: 29
NNTP-Posting-Host: 2001:888:2000:d::a6
Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:95939

On 2015-09-03 14:48, Peter Otten wrote:
> The only reason I see to add an extra comma are smaller and easier
> to read diffs when you make a change:

While that's the primary reason I do it, it's also helpful if you
have a bunch of named keyword arguments and want sort/rearrange them
(usually for clarity/grouping). You don't have to worry about finding
the previous-last-item and adding a comma to it and then finding the
new-last-item and removing its comma.  Also, when adding a new
item, you can just copy an existing line, paste it, and modify the
salient parts without needing to append a comma to one line or
delete it from the pasted line.

But the improvement in diff output?  That's a big win for me.

I notice it most when I *can't* use it, like in writing SQL:

  SELECT
    col1,
    col2,
    col3, -- grr, can't do this
  FROM tblExample

so my SQL diffs are the "removed this line and replaced it with
something almost identical except it now has a comma".  Harumph.

-tkc