[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 326 now online

[Guido van Rossum]

> > I just got a comment from another user suggesting modifying the
> > min/max.__cmp__ so that they are the actual minimum and maximum.
> >
> > An interesting approach, which makes some sense to me.

Not to me.  Random reuses like this would make Python into a
mysterious language.

> This was my suggestion.  I am for this PEP and am willing to write the 
> reference implementation for the new min and max builtins if there's 
> enough interest.

Not from me -- don't waste your time.

> I have, like some others here, used my own One True Large Object.  I 
> think the best reason to have One True Large Object is because you 
> can't really compare two implementations of the One True Large Object 
> and expect to get a meaningful result out of it.
> 
> For the record, my use case had to do with a giant sorted list of 
> tuples and the bisect module.  The first element of a tuple was a 
> timestamp, the rest of the tuple isn't worth explaining but I never 
> wanted to compare against it.  The "database" had two primary 
> operations, inserting records *after* a timestamp, and finding every 
> record between two timestamps.  Let's take a look:

Your example (snipped here) seems to ask for a different kind of data
structure, rather than an object larger than everything else.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)