Surprised by the command "del"

[K Viltersten]

I'm reading the docs and at 5.2 the del
statement is discussed. At first, i thought
i've found a typo but as i tried that 
myself, it turns it actually does work so.

  a = ["alpha", "beta", "gamma"]
  del a[2:2]
  a

Now, i expected the result to be that the
"beta" element has been removed. Obviously, 
Python thinks otherwise. Why?!

Elaboration:
I wonder why such an unintuitive effect has
been implemented. I'm sure it's for a very
good reason not clear to me due to my
ignorance. Alternatively - my expectations
are not so intuitive as i think.   :)

--
Regards
Konrad Viltersten
--------------------------------
sleep    - a substitute for coffee for the poor
ambition - lack of sense to be lazy