"Michael P. Soulier" <msoulier at nortelnetworks.com_.nospam> wrote in message > <side_rant> > And who created file() as an alias for open()? Guido did as part of the type-class unification. Type objects (int, float, str, tuple, list, dict, file, etc), when called, now produce an object of that type, just as class object have always done. TJR