[Python-Dev] re: Tutorial: Brief Introduction to the Standard Libary

[Greg Ewing]

Arthur <ajsiegel at optonline.net>:

> In my view, there are usually more convenient ways to accomplish what copy
> is about, because you don't have to import copy.  And we are just in a
> circular argument. And its use is discouraged, as a matter of style. More
> circles.  But isn't it a harmless alternative, and a bit more explicit, in a
> good deal of circumstances - arguably.

There isn't any "good deal of circumstances" in the first place.  I'm
not sure why it is, but in my experience, and in other people's too,
it seems, it's very rare that you ever *need* to copy anything in
Python. There's nothing circular here -- it would still be true even
if copy() were a built-in.

And on the rare occasions where you *do* need to copy something, you
need to know a fair bit about the kind of thing you're copying, and
for what purpose you're copying it, so that you know exactly how much
of it to copy. It's a delicate operation that I'd be reluctant to
trust to any general-purpose copying function.

The result of all this is that I don't think I've *ever* used
copy() or deepcopy(). Whenever I've need to copy something I've
always used something type-specific such as list[:] or dict.copy(),
or written my own copying function.

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+
University of Canterbury,	   | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a	  |
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greg at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz	   +--------------------------------------+