python needs leaning stuff from other language

[Tim Wintle]

On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 13:12 -0400, Mel wrote:
> >>> I think it would also be better to have One (and prefereably Only One)
> >>> Obvious Way To Do It. That obvious way, for those who work with
> >>> Python's ‘set’ and ‘dict’, is a ‘clear’ method. It seems best to have
> >>> ‘list’ conform with this also.
> >> 
> >> Does that mean a one-off special case rule to forbid slices having a
> >> default?
> > 
> > Why would it do that?
> 
> Well, if list.clear were truly and strictly to be the only way to clear the 
> contents of a list, then assigning nothing via the default slice would have 
> to be ruled out.  `somelist[:] = []` is just a special case of assignment to 
> a slice generally.

agreed. If .clear was to be added then really assignments to slices
should be entirely removed. 

Tim W