Details about pythons set implementation

[bukzor]

On Jan 4, 9:08 am, Sion Arrowsmith <si... at chiark.greenend.org.uk>
wrote:
> Hrvoje Niksic  <hnik... at xemacs.org> wrote:
>
> >BTW if you're using C++, why not simply use std::set?
>
> Because ... how to be polite about this? No, I can't. std::set is
> crap. The implementation is a sorted sequence -- if you're lucky,
> this is a heap or a C array, and you've got O(log n) performance.
> But the real killer is that requirement for a std::set<T> is that
> T::operator< exists. Which means, for instance, that you can't
> have a set of complex numbers....
>
> --
> \S -- si... at chiark.greenend.org.uk --http://www.chaos.org.uk/~sion/
>    "Frankly I have no feelings towards penguins one way or the other"
>         -- Arthur C. Clarke
>    her nu becomeþ se bera eadward ofdun hlæddre heafdes bæce bump bump bump

Why cant you implement < for complex numbers? Maybe I'm being naive,
but isn't this the normal definition?
    a + bi < c + di iff sqrt(a**2 + b**2) < sqrt(c**2, d**2)

How do you implement a set without sorting?

Are you expecting better than O(log n)?

--Buck