The reason C++ has so many data types is for performance reasons. If you have a constant list of items, you use a tuple. If you know the list isn't going to exceed a certain length, you use arrays. If you're mainly going to be iterating through it, you use list. Otherwise, you use vector.

The reason Python doesn't need to worry about that is because it has entirely different goals.

Antoine Pitrou <solipsis@pitrou.net> wrote:
On Sat, 8 Feb 2014 05:00:24 +1100
Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
 On Sat, Feb 8, 2014 at 1:59 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis@pitrou.net> wrote:
 On Fri, 7 Feb 2014 22:45:33 +1100
 Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
 But apart from
 maybe reducing the memory copying (the same optimization could mean
 that repeated pop(0) calls would incur less copying, too), there's not
 a huge gain.

 If you think switching from O(n**2) to O(n) isn't a huge gain, then
 indeed :-)

 
 Sure, that would be a huge
gain. But anyone who's repeatedly calling
 pop(0) followed by insert(0,x) should be using deque rather than list.

Indeed, since deque exists, it is the reasonable answer.

This whole discussion happens in a hypothetical setting where deque
wouldn't exist and there would be an opportunity to make list a
one-size-fits-all sequence type.

(note that my personal opinion is that built-in Python data types should
be sufficiently powerful to cater for most use cases, rather than build
a whole array of specialized collection types as in Java or C++)

Regards

Antoine.



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