[Python-Dev] deque alternative (was: Linked lists)

[Christian Tismer]

Guido van Rossum wrote:

> Python's philosophy about (built-in) data types, inherited from ABC,
> is to offer a few powerful clearly distinct choices rather than lots
> of alternatives with overlapping usages. This reduces the time it
> takes to choose a data type and reduces the risk of picking the wrong
> type. (You seem to be indicating that this is indeed what's happening
> to you in Lisp. :-)

Speaking about the new dequeue type, I have the impression that
this reasoning applies there a bit, too?
Dequeues of course have applications, and I saw them used,
especially by newcomers to the language. So I like their
functionality.

But actually, I'm not so convinced if we need to introduce
a new datatype. How about an extension to normal lists
that does a little tracking of use-cases and decides about
changing its implementation upon the presence of inserts/deletes
at the lower end of the list?

I'm btw. not sure if this raises an implicit/explicitiness issue.
My question is if it is necessary to put the burden about explicitly
choosing a specialized two-ended list on the programmer, or if it
is simple enough to make lists just do the right thing, if lists
are used in a dequeue-style manner. Or is this maybe too much magic
happening?

merry christmas -- chris

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