lovely Python (compared with PHP or maybe some other languages)

The Zen of Python, especially "There should be one - and preferably only one - obvious way to do it", highly attracts me. And that actually drives me to start learning Python. And once I start, I find I like it more. Just some simple examples can show how Python practise what it preaches.

Python code

name = 'henry'

if name == 'hengrui':

            print ('Hello ' + name)

else:

            print ('Is ' + name + ' your real name?')

PHP code

version 1

$name = 'henry';

if  ($name == 'hengrui') {

            echo 'Hello ', $name;

} else {

            echo 'Is ', $name, ' your real name?';

}

version 2

$name = 'henry';

if  ($name === 'hengrui') {

            echo 'Hello ', $name;

} else {

            echo 'Is ', $name, ' your real name?';

}

Found the difference in this version? Well, it is '===' not '=='.

version 3

$name = 'henry'

if  ($name == 'hengrui')

            echo 'Hello ', $name;

else

            echo 'Is ', $name, ' your real name?';

version 4

$name = 'henry'

if  ($name == 'hengrui') echo 'Hello ', $name;

else

            echo 'Is ', $name, ' your real name?';

Surely we can still have some other versions of implementation in PHP code. Like it or not? It is up to you. But for me, i don't like this kind of variations and definitely coding conventions must be set up to ensure we won't have all these different coding practices in serious projects.

In my post, http://hengrui-li.blogspot.com/2011/05/variable-assignment-inside-if.html, i believe doing assignment in if statement is a very bad practice. In Python, you just can't do that.

PHP code

function getResult()

{

                //oh, by the way, for boolean value, you can also return TRUE, True. Anyway, case insensitive

                return true;

}

//this code works in PHP

if ($result = getResult()) {

                echo 'it is true';

}

Python code

def getResult():

                #you can only use True, case sensitive.

                return True

if result = getResult():

                print('it is true')

The python code simply cannot work. It doesn't allows you to do assignment in if statement. in a if statement, the only one thing you should do and you can do is logic operation.

Another very simple example:

PHP code

//both works

print 'hello';

print ('hello');

Python code

#this is correct

print ('hello')

#this is syntax error in python 3

print 'hello'

You may say, hey in this case PHP is better because you can type less. Well, typing more or less doesn't matter here. The point is: "There should be one - and preferably only one - obvious way to do it". (Actually, in python 2, print is a statement as well and it works exactly like PHP print. But Python 3 corrects this issue, which is good!)