about sort and dictionary

[rurpy at yahoo.com]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> bonono at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > so what would an entry-level Python programmer expect from this
> > piece of code?
> >
> > for item in a.reverse():
> > print item
> > for item in a.reverse():
> > print item
> >
> > I would expect it to first print a in reverse then a as it was.
> >
> > a=[1,2,3]
> >
> > I expect it to print
> >
> > 3
> > 2
> > 1
> > 1
> > 2
> > 3
> >
> really?  wouldn't
>
>     3
>     2
>     1
>     3
>     2
>     1
>
> make a lot more sense ?

I am not a complete newb at python, but I am still pretty new.
I too thought immediately that the output should be 3,2,1, 1,2,3.
I used reverse() and sort() a couple time and of course read
the docs before I did.  I noted they do the change inplace, and
don't find rememering that to be a terrible burden.  Actually, I
get rather annoyed by the comment that they return None "as
a reminder" that the change is inplace.  How arrogant!  While
I'm sure the designers had kindly intentions. my memory, though
bad, is not that bad, and I object to being forced to write code
that is more clunky than need be, because the designers thought
they needed to help me with my memory.