I don't understand, he seems to be dealing with that syntax like two lines later?
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“But wait! Python has a ternary conditional expression!” It doesn’t change the essential point, but OK—you can indeed write this:
42 + (100 if 1 < 0 else 200)
But now suppose we want to use a conditional in place of the operator, not the right-hand value. In a Lisp, because everything is an expression—including the operator itself—this is easy:
((if (< 1 0) + * ) 42 100)
But if you try the same thing in Python, it will raise a syntax error:
Hmm, my mistake I stopped reading after I saw he said something false. Guess I should read the whole thing instead of dismissing something after I see a false statement.
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“But wait! Python has a ternary conditional expression!” It doesn’t change the essential point, but OK—you can indeed write this:
42 + (100 if 1 < 0 else 200)
But now suppose we want to use a conditional in place of the operator, not the right-hand value. In a Lisp, because everything is an expression—including the operator itself—this is easy:
((if (< 1 0) + * ) 42 100)
But if you try the same thing in Python, it will raise a syntax error:
42 (+ if 1 < 0 else * ) 100
...