Too much builtins (was Re: Python's simplicity philosophy

[Alex Martelli]

Ville Vainio wrote:
   ...
> [stuff that should remain builtins]
> 
>> iter, len, pow [for the crucial 3-arguments case], range (or some
>> preferable variant that returns an iterator), and zip seem pretty
> 
> +enumerate

Yep, it sure should be there.


>> are quite handy for interactive use, such as locals, globals,
>> dir, vars, ..., are not all that frequently used in programs --
>> so they might live in a module that the interactive mode gets
>> automatically, rather than being built-ins.
> 
> locals and globals seem to have a natural place in builtins IMHO.

Why?  They only allow a limited form of introspection.  Why are
they more essentially "built-in" than other stuff in inspect?


>> All of this would be perfect for the mailing list on Python 3.0
>> if the latter existed.  Posting it to c.l.py makes it unlikely
>> Guido will ever consider the discussion's resuts, anyway.  The
> 
> How about the wiki at python.org?

Sure, one could write things up there, but I don't think it's a
medium as suitable to debate as a newsgroup or mailing list.


Alex