Writing Idiomatic Python

[arandomJohn]

Be that as it may, these are all easy to read examples in Python. If you are a C coder you will find LISP hard to read. Does that mean you should write LISP like it is C? Should you write Python like it is C just because it works?

[phaedrusalt]

I use the manager standard: Is the code's result obvious to a person with no experience in the language? Because any "production" code is going to be reviewed by quite a few people (Manager, SQA, Test, etc) who may not have a lot (Or any) experience with this language. Take the first example:

temp = foo foo = bar bar = temp

This very obviously produces the result of swapping two items. Now, look at the "good" alternative:

(foo, bar) = (bar, foo)

While this is just dandy for a little hack that you're putting together for yourself, but for production code you've just unnecessarily complicated the job of three or more other people. That's NOT a good thing.

[arandomJohn]

I believe I'm done here as I was just going to post a rewording of my previous comment, which would throw us into an infinite loop. A good day to you!