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Python The Solution: While Loops

Philip Schultz
Philip Schultz
11,437 Points
Posted by Philip Schultz
Philip Schultz
11,437 Points

Why does Kenneth use - if not current %3 or current % 5 == 0:

Hello Everyone, I'm struggling to understand why someone would write the if statement like this 

current = 1
while current < 101:
  if not current %3 or current % 5 == 0: 
    print(current)
  current += 1

Why use 'not current %3' in one half of the if statement, but not the other with %5. I understand using one or the other but isn't it confusing to the reader to use both forms of logic back to back?

For example, he could have said

 if not current %3 or not current % 5:

or he could have said

 if  current %3 ==0 or  current % 5==0:

Both of these would give the same result and much easier to read for the user, right? Am I missing something?

2 Answers

Alexander Davison
Alexander Davison
65,469 Points

I agree. I would stick to using one or the other.

I personally prefer current % 3 == 0, because it makes it clear that you are checking whether the remainder is zero or not. But regardless of which method I use, I would always stick to one or the other. Funny seeing Kenneth do that :grin:

Nicholas Johnson
Nicholas Johnson
12,945 Points
Nicholas Johnson
Nicholas Johnson
12,945 Points

Hey explicitly says he's just demonstrating multiple way to arrive at the same solution, to give us examples of how there are usually several ways to accomplish a task in coding. I don't think he would have left dissimilar approaches in his production code if this was for a real-world application.