On 3 May 2017 at 02:48, Erik <python@lucidity.plus.com> wrote:
Anyway, I know you can't stop anyone from *proposing* something like this, but as soon as they do you may decide to quote the recipe from "https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#zip" and try to block their proposition. There are already threads on fora that do that.
That was my sticking point at the time when I implemented a general solution. Why bother to propose something that (although it made my code significantly faster) had already been blocked as being something that should be a python-level operation and not something to be included in a built-in?
It sounds like you have a reasonable response to the suggestion of using zip - that you have a use case where performance matters, and your proposed solution is of value in that case. Whether it's a *sufficient* response remains to be seen, but unless you present the argument we won't know. IMO, the idea behind itertools being building blocks is not to deter proposals for new tools, but to make sure that people focus on providing important low-level tools, and not on high level operations that can just as easily be written using those tools - essentially the guideline "not every 3-line function needs to be a builtin". So it's to make people think, not to block innovation. Hope this clarifies, Paul