*-unpacking

[Alex Martelli]

David Mertz wrote:

> |> The hermeneutics of the thread aren't worth getting hung up on.
> 
> Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it> wrote previously:
> |If you have no grounds to claim I made a mistake, then please don't
> |(and apologize if you think you have done so in error).
> 
> Well, OK... if you want to get hung up on hermeneutics, the sequence
> was:
> 
>  (0) Greg used the example of command-line processing to argue for the
>      addition of 'car,*cdr=thelist' to Python (which Alex and I both
>      like too).
> 
>  (1) I made the claim (well-known to Alex, but perhaps not to newbies
>      who might be reading) that reverse-with-many-pops is (much) faster
>      than many-pops-from-left.

You did not clearly express at that time that you had changed the
subject (without changing the Subject: header) from the subject
of star-unpacking to the one of "*MANY* pops".  Thus, I think I
was entirely justified in continuing to address the subject in
the header (and that your expression of your intentions left a
lot to be desired).  As you indicate you do not want to continue
discussing this, I will not; but it seems this is the crucial
point of disagreement, which I believe made your assertion about
having "found Alex in an outright mistake" (which you chose to
post as a comment to my assertion that both args.reverse() and
args.pop(0) are O(len(reverse)) -- an assertion that is anything
but a mistake) apparently justified in your opinion, and utterly
unjustified in mine.  I _do_ make "outright mistakes" (why, just
the other day I hastily posted a list comprehension as
[x in seq] instead of [x for x in seq]!!!), and I apologize when
it happens.  Having carefully re-read and examined this thread,
I am entirely convinced that this is not one such case, and not
happy at all that, despite having IN THAT VERY SAME POST admitted
that you had murkily been "changing the subject and not the Subject:"
("Admittedly, that's not directly part of what" we were discussing
is what you said!), you STILL appear convinced that no apology is
warranted about that "outright mistake" observation.


> Hopefully, the next part is (8) Alex chills out.

Not to worry: I'm more than chilly, I'm _ICY_ with people who claim
I am wrong and fail to back off when I am convinced that my evidence
to the contrary is entirely satisfactory.  At least, I think the
reason for my iciness has been made perfectly clear -- although I'm
still in the dark about why you still think your "outright mistake"
assertion was correct, I won't lose any sleep over that.


Alex