is there a better way to check an array?

[Peter Hansen]

Mike Meyer wrote:
> "Steve M" <sjmaster at gmail.com> writes:
>>my_list.find(candidate)
>>-returns the index into my_list of the first occurrence of candidate.
>>Returns -1 if candidate doesn't occur in my_list.
> 
> Lists don't have a find method. strings do. Why is a good question.

Probably because at one point lists didn't even have the index() method, 
and when it was suggested and (I believe) Raymond H. added it, I suspect 
nobody also suggested that implementing find() was a good idea so it 
wasn't done.

And, given both that index() exists and the recent discussion about the 
potential problems caused by find() returning a valid slice index when 
it fails, maybe it's _not_ a good idea...

-Peter