[Ram Rachum]
I noticed that `sum` tries to add zero to your iterable. Why? Why not just skip adding any start value if none is specified?
Once the API has been released, it is difficult to change without breaking code.
This current behavior is preventing me from using `sum` to add up a bunch of non- number objects.
You have plenty of options: * use sum() as designed and supply your own Zero object as a start (see below) * use reduce(operator.add, s) * write a simple for-loop to do summing It's not like summing is a hard task. There's nothing in you situation that would warrant changing the behavior of a published API where sum(s) is defined even when s is of length zero or one. Raymond ------------------------------------
class Zero: ... 'universal zero for addition' ... def __add__(self, other): ... return other ... def __radd__(self, other): ... return other ... Zero() + 'xyz' 'xyz' sum(['xyz pdq'], Zero()) 'xyz pdq'