[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 279 revisited

[Patrick K. O'Brien]

[Alex Martelli]
>
> What's now named 'enumerate', incidentally, is a type (just like 'tuple',
> 'dict', 'str' -- all consistently non-verbs, and types rather
> than functions
> since a few months), so I'm not quite sure why it should be a verb

I'm partial to enumerate, but agree with Alex that since it returns a type
the name is less than satisfying. So I'd like to float the idea of using the
Iterator spec as our model for this new type and function.

The new type is a numerator but that is a mouthful so the built-in function
should be named numer(), just like iter() is short for iterator. If people
can learn and remember iter(), it should be just as easy to learn and
remember numer(). They are spelled almost the same, they rhyme, they are
short, etc. All the logic that lead to the selection of iter() should apply
here.

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Patrick K. O'Brien
Orbtech