Ray, please reply on-list in the future in case someone else has input. On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 8:01 PM, Ray Parrish <c...@cmc.net> wrote:
> Luke Paireepinart wrote: > > print "A %s with dimensions %sx%s has an area of %s." % (choice, height, >> width, width*height) >> >> > Isn't it a little more understandable to use a construct like the > following? > > >>> print "The area of a " + Choice + "is " str(Width) + " x " + > str(Height) + " equals " + str(Width * Height) + " square feet" > > The area of a rectangle is 12 x 10 equals 120 square feet. > > I find that putting the variables on the end like that, when you're not > actually applying any special formatting to them makes it less readable when > I'm debugging my stuff, or when someone else is reading my code, and trying > to understand it. > > > Your version creates at least 10 intermediate strings before outputting. Remember strings are immutable in Python. So you're constructing strings The area of a The area of a rectangle The area of a rectangle is 12 The area of a rectangle is 12 The area of a rectangle is 12 x 10 The area of a rectangle is 12 x 10 The area of a rectangle is 12 x 10 equals 120 The area of a rectangle is 12 x 10 equals 120 The area of a rectangle is 12 x 10 equals 120 square feet With string formatting you avoid all of these intermediate strings, so it's arguably more efficient. Other than just viewing from a performance standpoint though, I find it much easier to read my version, because any computation required takes place at the end of the line. For example, your inline str(width*height) requires you to read the whole line to see it. It's really a personal thing, it's easier for me to read the formatting version than the string concatenation version, in most cases. Now if you had used the comma convention I would have seen your point. This is, I think, the easiest to read of all 3 area = width * height print "The area of a", choice, "is", width, "x", height, ", which equals", area, "square feet." Also, why are you capitalizing variable names? That's a pretty unusual convention. -Luke
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