From: Daniel Brockman <daniel@...>
Date: 2005-07-17T05:01:24+09:00
Subject: Re: `not' in parameter lists

Devin Mullins <twifkak@comcast.net> writes:

> Mark Hubbart wrote:
>
>> However, it's true that you can't use it directly in parameter lists.
>> You can get around it like this:
>>   assert((not foo))
>> The extra parens make the 'not foo' evaluate separately from the
>> parameter list, and it works.
>
> Also, oddly,
>   assert (not foo)

Yes, I know ‘not’ is a keyword and I know you can work around the
problem like that.  That doesn't mean the current behavior of raising
a syntax error when seeing not in a parameter list is useful.

The best workaround is to simply use ‘!’, but I prefer the spelled-out
boolean operators, and I don't see why it should be disallowed here.

I realize that ‘not foo not bar and not baz’ would be confusing.
But I maintain that there is only one way to parse ‘assert not foo?’,
and that it looks better than ‘assert !foo?’.

-- 
Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se>

    So really, we all have to ask ourselves:
    Am I waiting for RMS to do this?   --TTN.