pop method question

[Nicholas Parsons]

On Mar 4, 2007, at 4:38 AM, Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch wrote:

> In <mailman.4638.1172976888.32031.python-list at python.org>, Nicholas
> Parsons wrote:
>
>> Just from my computer science background when I see pop(), I think  
>> of a
>> stack data structure.
>
> Then question your presumptions.  There are also many people thinking
> `list` must be something with nodes and pointers when they see the
> interface and usage of Python lists.

Good point :).

>
>> But then again, there are other examples of ambiguity in the python
>> language such as allowing operators like '+' to be overloaded.   
>> Why not
>> just have a "add()" method like Java?
>
> Why does this remove ambiguity?  I even would expect different  
> behaviour
> from both.  I expect the ``+`` operator to return either an  
> immutable or
> entirely new object, while `add()` can be something on containers that
> mutates the object.


This is true.  As long as the language (be it Java, Python, X) itself  
remains consistent over time, then this should be fine.

>
> Ciao,
> 	Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch
> -- 
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list