Slice confusion : a[n:p] is a list exclude the last element p (thus spoke Dijkstra)

[Andrew Koenig]

andrew> otoh, pointers are annoyingly different to iterators (at least
andrew> in java - don't know about c++)

C++ iterators behave much like like pointers; there are several
categories of iterators that differ from one another in what
pointer-like operations they support.  So, for example, a ``forward
iterator'' supports ++ but not --, a ``bidirectional iterator''
supports both ++ and -- but not addition or subtraction of arbitrary
integers, and so on.

-- 
Andrew Koenig, ark at research.att.com, http://www.research.att.com/info/ark