On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 11:18 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> wrote:
The open question so far is: How do we want our ranges to work? My intuition is weak, but says: range(0) != range(1, 1) != range(1, 1, 2) and range(0, 10, 2) != range(0, 11, 2); all because the arguments (after filling in the defaults) are different, and those arguments can come out using the start, stop, step attributes (once we implement them :-).
If range were a normal function, we would compare the output of the function call without worrying about what the inputs were. If range were tuple, then the exact inputs would matter, but it isn't. The few times I wanted to compare ranges, I cared what sequence they produced, and *wanted* it to normalize out the arguments for me. That said, it was years ago, and I can't even remember whether or not I was working on a "real-world" problem at the time. -jJ