On 9/25/07, Mark Summerfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My proposal was for the sorteddict to be put in the collections module, > not as a builtin. One of the things I particularly like about Python is > that the core language is small. > > However, I think that the collections module is rather thin, and as you > say, it is "obscure" so won't get in the way of inexperienced or casual > users if it is beefed up a bit, yet could be really useful to more > demanding users. > > On comp.lang.python, a respondent called Paul Hankin suggested a > somewhat different approach to mine: he proposed a sorteddict with the > same API as a dict but with a constructor that is similar to the > sorted() function: > > sorteddict((mapping | sequence | nothing), cmp=None, key=None, > reverse=None) > > He points out that this has a problem with keyword argument > dictionaries, but that one solution is sorteddict(dict(**kwargs), ...).
Why would this be a problem? There is no requirement that sorteddict() support this feature. > From comments other people have made on this list and on > comp.lang.python, it may be that Paul Hankin's approach is more popular > and better than the one I proposed---the only downside being that he > didn't give any hints as to an implementation. > > I am hoping that Python 2.6 (and 3.0) will have a sorted dictionary of > some kind, and I get the impression that it would be welcomed (in the > standard library). For that to happen, someone has to write a production-quality implementation, release it as a separate 3rd party module for a while, show that it is sufficiently stable and popular to be incorporated in the standard library, and commit to maintaining it for a few years at least. (It doesn't have to be all the same someone.) Hoping and wishing doesn't cause working code to spring into existence. -- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) _______________________________________________ Python-3000 mailing list Python-3000@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-3000 Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-3000/archive%40mail-archive.com
