[Python-Dev] Inconsistent API for sets.Set and build-in set

[Barry Warsaw]

On Thu, 2005-06-30 at 13:37, Raymond Hettinger wrote: 
> > If there are no objections, I propose to do the following (only in
> > Python 2.4 and 2.5):
> > 
> >       * Add set.union_update() as an alias for set.update().
> 
> No.  It was intentional to drop the duplicate method with the
> hard-to-use name.  There was some thought given to deprecating
> sets.union_update() but that would have just caused unnecessary grief.

Oh, okay.  Did you run out of clever abbreviations after
s/union_update/update/ or do you think that symmetric_difference_update
is already easy enough to use? ;)

Why was "update" chosen when you have two other forms of longer
*_update() methods on sets?  This is after all, a union and it's
arguably more confusing not to have that in the name (especially given
the "easy-to-use" other *_update() methods).

> > I consider this a bug in 2.4, not a new feature, because without it,
> it
> > makes more work in porting applications.
> 
> Bah.  It's just one of the handful of search/replace steps:
> 
>    Set --> set
>    ImmutableSet --> frozenset
>    union_update --> update

But an unnecessary one, IMO.

> > I'm willing to Just Fix It,
> 
> Please don't.  All of the differences between set and Set were
> intentional improvements (i.e. the hash algorithm's are different).

I don't care about the implementation, I'm sure it's vastly superior.
I'm concerned with the API.  I don't agree that dropping union_update()
is necessarily an improvement, but I guess I had my chance when the PEP
was being debated, so I'll drop it.

I do think you owe it to users to describe the differences in PLR $2.3.7
to aid people in the transition process.

-Barry

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