My favourite scripting language by far is Python. I’m always finding cool things in the language that I didn’t know were there. Even though I’ve been writing scripts in it for years, today I discovered that you can use maths-style ranges in comparisons.
Whereas in most languages to check a value x is within a range (say, 5 or more but less than 20),
you might do:
// In C:
if (x >= 5 && x < 20) { ... code ... }
# In Python (without using the cool thing)
if x >= 5 and x < 20: # code
In Python, you can write the more mathsy:
if 5 <= x < 20: # code
Just a little thing I never realised.
Matt Godbolt is a C++ developer living in Chicago. He works for Hudson River Trading on super fun but secret things. He is one half of the Two's Complement podcast. Follow him on Mastodon or Bluesky.
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