Can str.find be listed in PEP 3000 (under builtins) for removal? Would anyone really object?
Reasons: . . .
I had one further thought. In addition to your excellent list of reasons, it would be great if these kind of requests were accompanied by a patch that removed the offending construct from the standard library. The most important reason for the patch is that looking at the context diff will provide an objective look at how real code will look before and after the change. This would make subsequent discussions substantially more informed and less anecdotal. The second reason is that the revised library code becomes more likely to survive the transition to 3.0. Further, it can continue to serve as example code which highlights current best practices. This patch wouldn't take long. I've tried about a half dozen cases since you first posted. Each provided a new insight (zipfile was not improved, webbrowser was improved, and urlparse was about the same). Raymond