maximum() efficency

[Steven Bethard]

Steve R. Hastings wrote:
> I was looking at a Python function to find the maximum from a list. 
> The original was more complicated; I simplified it.  The built-in max()
> function can replace the simplified example, but not the original.

What's the original?  Are you sure max can't solve it with an 
appropriate decorate-sort-undecorate (DSU) or the key= argument coming 
in Python 2.5?

STeVe