While loops

[Miraclefruit]

L = [2, 4, 6, 8]
total = 0
while L != []:
     total += L[0]
     L = L[1:]
print(total)

How do I make this snippet simplified/clearer?

[micseydel]

Could you give us more context? This computes the sum of a list (inefficiently). So print(sum(L)) would do it, unless you have other restrictions.

[Larz60+]

L = [2, 4, 6, 8]
print(sum(L))
L = []

[sparkz_alot]

L = [2, 4, 6, 8]
print(sum(L))
L = []

Why are you setting 'L' to an empty list?

Edit:
Never mind, I see that is what the OP ends up with, though I'm not sure why he would want that.

[Miraclefruit]

Thank you, that's a way better to put it.

[Larz60+]

Why are you setting 'L' to an empty list?
He empties the list in original post, just creating that condition

[sparkz_alot]

Yeah, finally caught that after posting (see my edit)  

[nilamo]

If you really wanted to use a while loop, you could just check against the list itself (an empty list is the same as False), and .pop() instead of re-building the list each iteration.  So...

items = [2, 4, 6, 8]
total = 0
while items:
   total += items.pop()
print(total)

Or, if you're a map/reduce/functional fan (and don't want to just use sum() for some reason), then there's yet another way:

from functools import reduce
import operator

items = [2, 4, 6, 8]
print(reduce(operator.add, items))