Question about idioms for clearing a list

[Ed Singleton]

On 7 Feb 2006 00:27:05 -0800, Raymond Hettinger <python at rcn.com> wrote:

> There was a pithy Tim Peters quotation to the effect that he was
> unpersuaded by language proposals predicated on some hypothetical
> average programmer not being smart enough to understand something that
> the rest of us find to be basic.

The problem is that the average programmer in question isn't
hypothetical in this case.

I'm a fairly average programmer (better than average compared to my
immediate colleagues).  I've read every tutorial I can get my hands
on, but I have no _memory_  of ever coming across the del keyword, let
alone that it is fundamental to Python, and I have no idea what
collections school is.  I doubtless have read of it at some point, but
as no importance has ever been attached to it, I have probably not
remembered it.

Similarly, I remember slices simply because they are handy, not
because I have ever heard of them being fundamental before.

(I don't argue their fundamentalness one way or other, it's just that
you seem to think that all people who have learned Python have some
knowledge of this hugely important feature).

The other problem with your use of the quote is that the smartness of
the average programmer, or their ability to understand the feature, is
not in question.  It is their ability to know of the existence of the
feature, or to find out about it.

As a general rule of thumb, I would say that if a person is struggling
with a language, it is primarily a problem with the language, and than
problem with the documentation, and lastly a problem with the person.

Ed