split() and string.whitespace

[Chaim Krause]

That is a very creative solution! Thank you Scott.

> Or, for faster per-repetition (blending in to your use-case):
>
>      import string
>      SEP = string.maketrans('abc \t', '     ')
>      ...
>      parts = 'whatever, abalone dudes'.translate(SEP).split()
>      print parts
>
> ['wh', 'tever,', 'lone', 'dudes']