Python's Missing Switch Case and Van Halen's Logical Leap

Description

A two-part meme. The top text on a white background reads, 'When you realise python doesn't have a switch case:'. Below this is a photograph of a smiling Eddie Van Halen on stage, wearing a yellow tank top and holding his iconic red, white, and black striped guitar. A caption overlaid on the bottom of the image reads, 'Might as well jump'. The meme humorously connects a specific programming language feature - or lack thereof - with a classic rock anthem. For developers, the absence of a traditional switch-case statement in Python is a well-known characteristic, often leading to workarounds with dictionaries or if-elif-else chains. The punchline 'Might as well jump' is a literal quote from the Van Halen song 'Jump', comically suggesting a dramatic or musically-inspired reaction to this language design choice. It also serves as a clever pun on control flow 'jumps' in programming

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Python LanguageQuirks ControlFlow DeveloperHumor CodingHumor DeveloperFrustration LanguageFeatures

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Anonymous ★ Top Pick Python's philosophy is 'There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.' For switch cases, the obvious way is apparently a dictionary of functions, which feels less like a jump and more like a carefully mapped out teleport

Anonymous ★ Top Pick

Python's philosophy is 'There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.' For switch cases, the obvious way is apparently a dictionary of functions, which feels less like a jump and more like a carefully mapped out teleport
Anonymous

I survived 15 years riffing through if/elif solos; then Python drops match/case and everyone acts like pattern matching is a brand-new genre - thanks for releasing the remastered switch album, Guido
Anonymous

After 30 years of if-elif chains and dictionary dispatch patterns, Python finally got match/case in 3.10 - just in time for everyone to have already written their own switch implementation using lambdas, decorators, and three different metaclasses
Anonymous

Ah yes, the classic Python moment: you're about to elegantly handle multiple conditions with a switch statement, only to remember Guido decided 'explicit is better than implicit' meant writing 47 elif clauses instead. Sure, Python 3.10 gave us match/case, but by then we'd already built entire careers on nested if-elif chains and dictionary dispatch patterns. At least we can console ourselves that our code is 'readable' - assuming your definition of readable includes scrolling through a vertical tower of conditionals that would make the Tower of Babel jealous
Anonymous

Python didn’t skip switch; it jumped to match-case - now half the codebase is dispatch dicts, the other half is a mini‑Prolog, and everyone calls it “pythonic.”
Anonymous

Python vets don't miss switch - our dict dispatches have been pattern-matching fallthrough-free since the '90s
Anonymous

Senior workaround: build a dict-of-callables and call it a jump table - then 3.10 ships match/case and the architecture board says, “great, but keep our 2014 DispatcherFactory for consistency.”
@meowmeowang 5y

3.10
@xgoader 5y

yep, it will be added in python 3.10
1. @mvolfik 5y
  
  Ehh? You mean pattern matching? Or are they adding switch too 😳
  
  @Four_Velocity 5y
  
  https://docs.python.org/3.10/whatsnew/3.10.html#pep-634-structural-pattern-matching
  
  @RiedleroD 5y
  
  ah, which reminds me: I've done a little testing & structural pattern matching is already almost as fast as simple if/elif. I believe there will be a lot more optimisation in the following months, since it's very early in development. Source Code will be uploaded asap, if you guys want to take a look.
  
  @RiedleroD 5y
  
  https://github.com/RiedleroD/pymark for anyone interested
@zakaryan2004 5y

3.10
@dellism1 5y

switch case is just a bunch of if conditions
1. @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  That's the whole point, yes
2. @VladislavSmolyanoy 5y
  
  In theory yes
3. @Netawawa 5y
  
  Why do they exist then? Just to make code look better? Or they take less memory or smth?
  
  @dsmagikswsa 5y
  
  Switch after compile, it is just if else I think...so, It is for readability...
  
  @NoCountryForOldBuffet 5y
  
  Are you sure? If it's implemented with a lookup/jump table it should come out marginally faster
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  They don't, and can't take less memory
4. @dugeru42 5y
  
  Take a break
@dellism1 5y

change my mind
@man13hma 5y

Switch case is a bad practice in every language
1. @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  NoU
  
  @man13hma 5y
  
  ?
@dellism1 5y

switch case is a good behavior in coding i think
@man13hma 5y

No trolling. Switch case - bunch of ifs. To much of ifs - bad practice -> switch case - bad practice
1. @RiedleroD 5y
  
  talking about stuff you don't understand → bad practice
@NoCountryForOldBuffet 5y

EG if you have cases 1-9, then you can jump to the default case (or skip the block) if you're > 9
1. @dsmagikswsa 5y
  
  How are you sure you can jump to default without checking other case?
@NoCountryForOldBuffet 5y

Because compilers can check what the range of cases that exist are, and skip if it's outside that range
1. @dsmagikswsa 5y
  
  Sometimes there is no range, right? It is not necessary a range of number. At the same time, when the compiler check, it sort of doing the if else?
@NoCountryForOldBuffet 5y

Right, sometimes you can't optimize like that, and in those cases it's just a marginally more readable if-then-else block
@NoCountryForOldBuffet 5y

And yeah, when the compiler does the checks, it's doing the if-else, but the compiler isn't what executes the program
@NoCountryForOldBuffet 5y

The compiler can, in some cases, make code that is marginally more cycle efficient using switch than a naive if-elif-else block
1. @dsmagikswsa 5y
  
  Good to know. I have a look about it. Thankyou
2. @chupasaurus 5y
  
  The problem is python code usually isn't being compiled
@serghei_k 5y

if/elseif/else looks like pasta factory, so IMO this should be considered as a bad practice, not switch/case
@NoCountryForOldBuffet 5y

Yeah, I was speaking theoretically, for python I don't think it matters, and I doubt the main compilers would bother implementing it with a jump table
1. @RiedleroD 5y
  
  well the main compilers are cython and nuitka, which would both probably just compile it to an actual switch case statement in C/C++ unless some fancy stuff is happening that C/C++ doesn't support in a switch/case statement.
  
  @RiedleroD 5y
  
  pypy and cpython handle this way differently thought & could possibly still benefit from this
  
  @RiedleroD 5y
  
  once I get python 3.10 on my machine, I can run a few benchmarks & stuff
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  why even try running performance benchmarks on a python program
  
  @RiedleroD 5y
  
  mostly because it's fun, really.
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  it's mostly sad as for me
  
  @RiedleroD 5y
  
  Idk I just like numbers & statistics.
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  also, isn't spm more like rust's match expression and not like c/c++ switch statement
  
  @RiedleroD 5y
  
  idk I don't know about rust.
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  or the proposed c++23 match expression
  
  @RiedleroD 5y
  
  idk about that either tbh.
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  it does both structure decomposition and control flow
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  which is plain better than a switch and if
  
  @dugeru42 5y
  
  To determine which will be faster in production
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  PYTHON CODE IN PROD
@FluffyClaws 5y

Where the fuck is the neck pickup????
@dnomin 5y

Golang don't have try/catch 🌚
@slnt_opp 5y

Why one would even need it, if it's three statements - if elif else, if more - use maps
@Agent1378 5y

In switch a compiler/interpreter can create a jump table, so instead of checking all the values like in multiple if you get to do one check in a constant time. Very effective
1. @p4vook 5y
  
  Speed lover boo cringe
  
  @Agent1378 5y
  
  Yes, python isn't known for speed so why bother, right 😂
@feskow 5y

lover

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Python's Missing Switch Case and Van Halen's Logical Leap

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