Therefore, I consider divmod a waste of code and a function to be deprecated ASAP (and since years).
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea.
Save brain cells, save computation time, and save paper and ink of the book writers by dropping divmod!
At this point, any change causes waste, so unless it's truly broken (which I don't believe) I'm not for changing it.
Vice versa, if at all, I suggest a built in /% operator as a faster equivalen to single / and %, but I believe this code can be used more efficiently. divmod should be a special case of an algebraic extension module and removed from the builtins.
That would have to be //% to be in line with the // operator, of course. But I'd rather spend the effort towards making the compiler smart enough to recognize that divmod is a built-in so it can generate more efficient code (and I *am* prepared to make the necessary -- slight -- changes to the language so that the compiler can make this deduction safely).
divmod does not save computation time, does not reduce programming time, does not simplify programs, eats paper and code space
I find mm, ss = divmod(ss, 60) easier to read than mm, ss = ss//60, ss%60 --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)