inserting into a list

[Steve Holden]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 12:26:00 -0800, James Stroud wrote:
> 
> 
>>John Salerno wrote:
>>
>>>Diez B. Roggisch wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Why don't you just _try_ that? It would have been way faster than to ask
>>>>questions you can easily answer yourself.
>>>
>>>
>>>I did try it, but I was still hoping for an explanation, which I've also 
>>>gotten from you guys, some in nicer terms than others.
>>
>>People who answer questions on this list have forgotten how unintuitive 
>>intuitive can be. In other words, they have found that the intuitive way 
>>to do things in python is usually the right way, which may not be the 
>>case in other languages. Thus, your instinct to see if your instincts 
>>are correct rings as laziness here, when in fact you are just being 
>>rigorous.
> 
> 
> Not rigorous. Perhaps thorougher.
> 
> Had the OP worded the question more rigorously, we wouldn't be having this
> argument:
> 
> "I wanted to see what happens if you try to insert a list into a list
> using slicing, and discovered that this works:
> 
> L[2:2] = [ [1,2,3] ]
> 
> Now I don't understand the reasoning behind this. Can somebody explain the
> rationale between needing to wrap objects in a list in order to insert
> using slices?"
> 
> To which the answer would be, so it is consistent with other slice
> assignment:
> 
> L[2:10] = [1, 2, 3, 4]
> 
> Retrieving a slice returns a list. Assigning to a slice requires a list.
> Making an exception for the special case of L[x:x] goes against
> the philosophy of the Python language: Python generally doesn't accept
> that special cases are special enough to break the rules.
> 
> Half the battle is asking the right question. The other half of the battle
> is asking the right question in the right way.
> 
> 
> 
And the third half of the battle is focusing on keeping everybody moving 
forward, approximately together. Let's move on now, nothing to see here ;-)

regards
  Steve
-- 
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