[Python-ideas] list.sort with a int or str key

list.sort, sorted, and similar methods currently have a "key" argument that accepts a callable. Often, that leads to code looking like this: mylist.sort(key=lambda x: x[1]) myotherlist.sort(key=lambda x: x.length) I would like to propose that the "key" parameter be generalized to accept str and int types, so the above code could be rewritten as follows: mylist.sort(key=1) myotherlist.sort(key='length') I find the latter to be much more readable. As a bonus, performance for those cases would also improve. -- Daniel Stutzbach <http://stutzbachenterprises.com>