Comment Re:Write-only code. (Score 1) 757
My view is that Python is an imperative language that is moving towards functional programming - much like both Ruby and JavaScript it's never going to get there, but it's a definite shift from when I started coding it at version 1.5, and IMO it's much cleaner to consider code as a series of transforms of varying kinds than a grab bag of tools.
I suspect switch lost out due to the C-style switch-with-fallthrough and "clever" shenanigans like Duff's Device that can make them anything but obvious what's going on, and back in 1991 avoiding that probably looked like a good idea for an easy to learn language. I once worked on an application that's core consisted of a 3,000 line switch statement for handling messages, with both fall-through all over the place, and parts of it callled back into itself in what may have been an attempt at code re-use, but was probably just as stupid as it looked... *shudder*
I like Coffeescript's switch, but that's partly because I like having every construct being an expression, removing an element of the code/data divide.