deprecation of has_key?

[Just]

In article <mailman.2254.1114121746.1799.python-list at python.org>,
 "Terry Reedy" <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:

> "Steven Bethard" <steven.bethard at gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:dfWdnZdcUZbqX_rfRVn-vw at comcast.com...
> > Ahh, ok.  Now I understand.  I think you could probably search the 
> > python-dev archives and see why the decision was made as it was.  For 
> > pretty much all my purposes, "key in dict" is much more useful than "item 
> > in dict".  Practicality beats Purity and all. ;)
> 
> In '[for] x in mydict:', x could potentially be key, value, or item-pair. 
> All three were considered and discussed -- I believe on clp-- and key 
> chosen as the most useful.  A specific analogy brought forth was the phone 
> book, a mapping of names to phone number and maybe address.  The decision 
> was definite closer to a coin-toss to a no-brainer.

The main argument was that nothing but "key in d" made sense (for 
__contains__), and that therefore "for key in d" was the only option, 
for symmetry with the other "in".

Just