[Nicolas Fleury]
This comment reminds me another small inconsistency/annoyance.
Should copy and clear functions be added to lists, to be more consistent with dict and set, and easing generic code?
I think not. Use copy.copy() for generic copying -- it works across a wide range of objects. Alternatively, use the constructor as generic way to make duplicates: dup = set(s) dup = list(l) dup = dict(d) dup = tuple(t) # note, the duplicate is original object here :-) I would think that that generic clearing is a lark. First, it only applies to mutable objects. Second, it would likely only be useful in the presence of a generic method for adding to the cleared container (as opposed to the existing append(), add(), and setitem() methods for lists, sets, and dictionaries respectively). So, for lists, stick with the current idiom: mylist[:] = [] # clear Raymond