[Python-ideas] Ordered storage of keyword arguments

[Greg Ewing]

Chris Rose wrote:

> I'm hard pressed to see how an ordered dict and a dict should be
> expected to differ by such a degree; in every particular they behave
> the same, except in the case of the OrderedDict you specify your
> initial parameters in tuples?

Well, you *can* specify them in tuples for an ordinary
dict if you want:

 >>> d = dict([('a', 1), ('b', 2)])
 >>> d
{'a': 1, 'b': 2}

The fact that keywords also work for an ordinary dict is
really just a lucky fluke that works in the special case
where the keys are identifier-like strings. In any other
case you have to use tuples anyway. Also, you get away
with it because dicts happen to be unordered. Expecting
your luck in this area to extend to other data types
is pushing things a bit, I think.

-- 
Greg