On: What's Coming in Python 3.8

[msluyter]

You think that's bad? Check out:

    a = 17
    print("a=", a)
    print("a=" + str(a))
    print("a=%s" % a)
    print("a={}".format(a))
    print(f"a={a}") 
    # python 3.8 =>
    print(f"{a=}")

So many ways to do it...

But, if it sounds like I agree with you, I actually don't. I feel that the Zen of Python has taken on an almost religious level of veneration in people's minds, and leads to all sorts of unproductive debates. One person can latch onto "there should be one obvious way to do it" and another onto "practicality beats purity" and another onto "readability counts." Who's right? All can be. Or none. All could be applied to this particular case.

The Zen of Python is just a set of rough heuristics, and no heuristic or principle in the field of software development applies 100% of the time, IMHO. <= except for this one ;)

[HelloNurse → msluyter]

> there should be one obvious way to do it

In cases like this, different ways to do it (all equally good) are needed to get a good coverage of different tastes in obviousness and different nuances in the task.

The point is not uniformity, but avoiding the unpleasant and convoluted workarounds caused by non-obviousness (thus making the language easy to use).

String formatting is not trivial: there is the split (sometimes architectural, sometimes of taste, sometimes of emphasis) between concatenating string pieces, applying a format to objects, setting variable parts in templates, and other points of view; and there is a variety of different needs (cheap and convenient printing of data, dealing with special cases, complex templates...)

[Erwin → msluyter]

And there was also:

    print string.Template("a=$a").substitute(a=a)