[Python-Dev] PEP 326 (quick location possibility)

[Tim Peters]

[Josiah Carlson]
> ...
> If there is a core Python developer who thinks that this functionality
> should be included with Python (accessable via some method on a
> builtin, name, attribute, etc.), I'm sure we'd like to hear from you.

It doesn't appear to matter any more, but I did.  It's not needed often
enough to be a builtin, and ideas for confusing the existing meanings of
min() and max() were rightfully dead on arrival, so finding a sensible place
for sensible names is a real problem.  The functionality of "a biggest" and
"a smallest" object is A-OK by me, though, and something I'd use.

Indeed, I had a bug within the past few years in a find-the-minimum search
loop, using an initial value 10x larger than anything I thought I'd ever
see.  A few months later, the inputs in one case happened *all* to be larger
than that, so it returned the bogus initial value as if it were a sensible
result.  Hilarity ensued.  There are few enough bugs in my code at this age
that I take very seriously any principled gimmick that could prevent
repeating one.  One thing I haven't needed is an object guaranteed to
compare "bewteen" any two others <wink>.