Newbie Questions: Swithing from Perl to Python

[Mel Wilson]

In article <roy-57494B.09031926102003 at reader1.panix.com>,
Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> wrote:
>I certainly understand the efficiency aspects of in-place sorting, but
>this has always seemed like premature optimization to me.  Most of the
>time (at least in the code I write), the cost of an extra copy is
>inconsequential.

   I don't think of that as the problem.  I think the
problem would be in encouraging programs that copy-sort a
big list, use the copy once and throw it away, and then do
it all over again.  A big sorted dataset is more precious
than an unsorted version.  Copying isn't usually the big
cost.

   The up-side to this is that it'll give new Python
programmers a nice optimization question to ask on
c.l.python, and get introduced to the gang.

        Regards.        Mel.