dictionary issue (and maybe PEP ... depending on the answer)

[dsavitsk]

andrew cooke wrote:
> dsavitsk <dsavitsk at ecpsoftware.com> writes:
> [...]
> 
> you want a non-destructive sort.  i want a non-destructive sort.  last
> week someone was wanting to add a non-destructive sort with mapping.
> every new user screws up assuming that [].sort is non-destructive.
> even norvig lists it as the big ugly wart in python (well, maybe not
> in those words).
> 
> you'd think that someone would add non-destructive sort to python,
> wouldn't you?
> 
> funny old world, eh?
> 
> andrew
> 
Indeed.  I've been using this language for going on 6 years and I still 
screw this up.  I was even so assanine as to assume that since, so far 
as i can tell, the most useful thing for list comprehensions (or rather, 
the thing that would seemingly justify adding them to the language 
beyond the coolness factor) seems to be generating a list in place that 
can be passed to a function all in one line, that at least tacking a 
.sort() on a list comprehension would be a reasonable sort of thing to 
expect.

Oh well, I don't want to be one of those c.l.py people who argues 
against decided points and makes everyone here hate them. It does seem, 
though, that leaving sort() alone and adding .returned_sort() or 
whatever would not be so terrible.

-doug