Initializing a list with copies

[Alex Martelli]

Steve Holden wrote:
        ...
> So, while I thought the change had been made (because type(int) ==
> type(type)) the documentation seemed to say otherwise. This is the kind of

Not so much the paragraph you quote, but the fact that the whole page
is titled "functions", yes.  Fred Drake is doing a heroic job but he can't
do it all on his own!  Why not offer context-diffs to the docs to help
him out?  Maybe just changing the section title to "built-in functions
and types" and inserting a small paragraph reminding the reader that
int (and complex, dict, list, etc etc), while callable just like functions,
are in fact type objects so they may also be subclasses, used in
isinstance, etc.

> Types, of course, are callables, so it's reasonable to represent them as
> functions, but it's interesting that the new types' constructors are so
> explicitly polymorphic across the "sensible" arguments. The documentation
> is unchanged in the CVS tree.

So help it change, if you think it can be enhanced reasonably easily.

You are an excellent writer, clear and concise, with an uncanny ability
to address the reader's typical concerns/doubts/misunderstandings.  Helping
enhance Python's docs is just as important (some of us would say, MORE
important, since most hackers much prefer writing code than docs:-) as
helping enhance Python's interpreter and library code.


Alex