General question about Python design goals

[Antoon Pardon]

On 2005-12-01, Steve Holden <steve at holdenweb.com> wrote:
> Antoon Pardon wrote:
>> On 2005-12-01, Fredrik Lundh <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:
>> 
>>>Mike Meyer wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>So why the $*@& (please excuse my Perl) does "for x in 1, 2, 3" work?
>>>
>>>because the syntax says so:
>>>
>>>    http://docs.python.org/ref/for.html
>>>
>>>
>>>>Seriously. Why doesn't this have to be phrased as "for x in list((1,
>>>>2, 3))", just like you have to write list((1, 2, 3)).count(1), etc.?
>>>
>>>because anything that supports [] can be iterated over.
>> 
>> 
>> This just begs the question. If tuples are supposed to be such
>> heterogenous sequences, one could indeed question why they
>> support [].
>> 
> Presumably because it's necessary to extract the individual values 

It isn't, The stated intent of tuples seems to suggest that packing
and unpacking should be sufficient.

> (though os.stat results recently became addressable by attribute name as 
> well as by index, and this is an indication of the originally intended 
> purpose of tuples).
>
>> And even if good arguments are given why tuples shouls support
>> [], the fact that the intention of tuples and list are so
>> different casts doubts on the argument that supporting []
>> is enough reason to support iteration.
>> 
>> One could equally also argue that since iteration is at the heart
>> of methods like index, find and count, that supporting iteration
>> is sufficient reason to support these methods.
>> 
> One could even go so far as to prepare a patch to implement the required 
> methods and see if it were accepted (though wibbling is a much easier 
> alternative).

That has been done and it was rejected.

> Personally I find the collective wisdom of the Python 
> developers, while not infallible, a good guide as to what's pythonistic 
> and what's not. YMMV.

That's because their decisions will shape python and thus decide
what is pythonic and what is not.

-- 
Antoon Pardon