Function/method returning list of chars in string?

[Terry Reedy]

jon vs. python wrote:
> Sorry, I didn't realize that you already proposed list comprehension.
> 
> 
> There is some kind of asymmetry in several areas.I guess that's
> somehow related to this post: 
> http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2009-05-29.html

The premise of this post by Zed the Insightful is that Python developers 
are like a homegenous bunch of brain-damaged people.  Instead, they are 
a heterogenous group of volunteers, with rotating membership, at least 
some of whom are aware of the various issues he mentions, but who are 
constrained by both time limits and back compatibility.

The constraint of back compatibility was loosened for 3.0.  What 
contribution did Zed Shaw make toward improving the deficiencies he 
noted when he had a chance?  I do not remember any.

His excuse: "If I had the time I would try to fix this stuff, but I 
realize that none of this will be fixed until there’s a cultural shift 
in Python away from this habit of Neglect."  This bogus excuse is 
Neglect on his part.  I strongly suspect, based on experience with other 
Professional Critics / Ignored Prophets like him, that efforts to help 
him contribute would be ignored or rejected.

Python and the stdlib is all open source.  If he were to submit a patch, 
and it were ignored or rejected for whatever reason, he could still 
release it and register it on PyPI.  I just checked and NONE of the 6710 
submissions are his.

"There’s many more places where this kind of neglect is found, but these 
days I just accept it and move on unless I seriously get pissed off. The 
last tool I did this to was argparse and optparse which I replaced with 
a much nicer system in Lamson."

Perhaps someday he will share his "improved" version and let others 
judge and possibly use it.

"For the longest time (at least until 2000 when I last looked)" he 
writes on 2009-05-29, NINE years later.  A decent reviewer would look 
for updated info before criticizing.

I happen to agree with the design principle of pairing inverse 
operations, but
1) starting the presentation of that principle with bogus ad hominen 
attacks discredits it;
2) there may be more than one way to implement the principle in 
particular, and people may reasonably disagree on the best way.  See my 
other response in this thread on str.join.

Terry Jan Reedy