In article <[email protected]>, Steve Howell <[email protected]> wrote: > >I really want to use list *normally* with all its perfectly good >semantics and reasonable implementation, except for its blind spot >with respect to popping the first element off the list. The whole >reason I use CPython vs. C in the first place is that CPython >programmers can generally program basic data structures better than I >can. But list.pop(0) is the exception. And, with the possible >exception of dicts, lists are the most fundamental data structures >that Python has. > >I know Python's number one concern will never be speed, but if Python >makes an O(1) operation into an unnecessarily O(N) operation for no >good reasons other than "it's too complicated, " or it "adds another >pointer to the structure," or "it adds another conditional check to >list_ass_slice for operations that aren't popping off the top," I >think it's reasonable to challenge the design philosophy.
"Rough consensus and running code." You have a good point, but nobody will ever give your idea serious attention until there's a patch and benchmarks. -- Aahz ([email protected]) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ import antigravity -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
