Behaviour of pop() for dictionaries

[BlindAnagram]

On 14/06/2021 20:43, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 5:41 AM BlindAnagram <blindanagram at nowhere.org> wrote:
>> However, d.pop(key, [default]) returns the value (or the default) and
>> consistency with other pops (a good thing in my view) would suggest that
>> d.pop() could return a random value, which would serve my purpose when
>> there is only one element.
>>
> 
> Is this actually important or are you just looking for a meaningless
> "inconsistency"? Dictionaries are fundamentally different from lists.
> Is it really that hard to use popitem?

No I am not looking for meaningless inconsistency - just the opposite in 
fact - meaningful consistency.

I believe that consistency in how methods common to different types work 
is useful since it adds to the coherence of the language as a whole and 
avoids the need to remember special cases.

No it isn't hard to use popitem() but it evidently proved hard for me to 
remember that it was there.

   Brian