[Python-Dev] PEP 201 - Parallel iteration

[Moshe Zadka]

On Tue, 18 Jul 2000, Gordon McMillan wrote:

> (If you don't agree with that, you don't agree with the PEP).

I agree with that. Luckily, I've snipped it, so it's not valid as evidence
<wink>

> So I'm proposing that the 2nd positional arg, if not present, be 
> treated as []. That makes:

That's a special case!

> Which doesn't answer the question posed in the PEP. All of 
> the proposed responses are special cases. The one I've seen 
> mentioned most often:
>    >>zip([1,2,3])
>    [(1,),(2,),(3,)]
> is very much as special case, as you can see if you ask 
> "what happens when I add a pad arg?".

I disagree: you agree that if you add a pad argument when the lists are
all the same size it doesn't matter (if you don't agree with this, you
don't agree with the PEP). Now, when there is only one list, the lists are
all the same size. QED.

> However, if the dev list is having so much trouble deciding how 
> it should decay, I'll vote for throwing an exception.

I'm starting to agree -- I'm thinking like a mathematician, which not
everyone in the world are (sadly)
--
Moshe Zadka <moshez@math.huji.ac.il>
There is no GOD but Python, and HTTP is its prophet.
http://advogato.org/person/moshez