list.pop(0) vs. collections.dequeue

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 02:33:36 -0800, Steve Howell wrote:

> You are also a brilliant computer scientist, despite the fact that you
> are defending a list implemenation that can't pop the first element off
> the list in O(1) time.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

It's very simple: the trade-offs that the Python development team have 
deliberately chosen aren't the same trade-offs that you prefer. That 
doesn't make your trade-offs right and Python's wrong. They're just 
different, and if Python lists had your preferred implementation, I 
guarantee that somebody would be complaining about it right now.

If you're serious about wanting O(1) pops from the start of the list, 
write your own list implementation and use it. You might even like to 
make it public, so others can use it as well. But please stop with the 
snide remarks and poorly disguised insults and back-handed compliments, 
it's getting tedious.

Or just change your algorithm slightly -- it's not hard to turn an 
algorithm that pops from the start of a list to one that pops from the 
end of the list.



-- 
Steven