> is, I think you've hit on the answer: the default, if you will, is to > perform operations in-place, to avoid the necessity of reassigning a > list to it's sorted version, to give one example.
But that isn't necessary, you could just return a reference to the sorted list, that is: x = L.sort() is identical to L.sort() x = L That is quite resource efficient and allows things l;ike print L.sort() This is the default technique in SmallTalk methods, if you don't know what else to return then return self It's a pretty good default rule IMHO. Alan G. _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
