April 9, 2018
11:14 a.m.
On 9 April 2018 at 14:38, Raymond Hettinger <raymond.hettinger@gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 8, 2018, at 6:43 PM, Tim Peters <tim.peters@gmail.com> wrote: In short, for _general_ use `accumulate()` needs `initial` for exactly the same reasons `reduce()` needed it.
The reduce() function had been much derided, so I've had it mentally filed in the anti-pattern category. But yes, there may be wisdom there.
Weirdly (or perhaps not so weirdly, given my tendency to model computational concepts procedurally), I find the operation of reduce() easier to understand when it's framed as "last(accumulate(iterable, binop, initial=value)))". Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia