• it is supposedly significantly faster
• new, means, eventually we'll have to use it, so might as well get used to it now!
• it's a method on an object, which makes my brain happy. I never managed to get my brain wrapped around the old style syntax, it's inconsistent with the rest of the python syntax.
% python3.3 -mtimeit 's="%s %s %s"' 's % (1, 3, 9)'
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.361 usec per loop
% python3.3 -mtimeit 's="{} {} {}"' 's.format(1, 3, 9)'
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.593 usec per loop
% python3.3 -mtimeit 'f="{} {} {}".format' 'f(1, 3, 9)'
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.569 usec per loop
TARGET(BINARY_MODULO)
w = POP();
v = TOP();
if (PyUnicode_CheckExact(v))
x = PyUnicode_Format(v, w);
else
x = PyNumber_Remainder(v, w);
Py_DECREF(v);
Py_DECREF(w);
SET_TOP(x);
if (x != NULL) DISPATCH();
break;
While the "".format(x) path goes through the normal method invocation path - it has no special treatment.
uhh... so you'd prefer to do something like `1.add(2)` ???
Another example for me, in Python, is:
print >> sys.stderr, 'foo'
print ('foo', file=sys.stderr) from __future__ import print_function
If we carry on this discussion lispers are going to tell us we're the ones with the funny syntax!