[Python-Dev] dict(keys, values)

[Brian Quinlan]

George Sakkis wrote:
> Perhaps this has been brought up in the past but I couldn't find it in
> the archives: far too often I use the idiom dict(zip(keys,values)), or
> the same with izip. How does letting dict take two positional
> arguments sound ?
> 
> Pros:
> - Pretty obvious semantics, no mental overhead to learn and remember it.
> - More concise (especially if one imports itertools just to use izip).
> - At least as efficient as the current alternatives.
> - Backwards compatible.
> 
> Cons:
- Yet Another Way To Do It
- Marginal benefit

Also note that the keyword variant is longer than the zip variant e.g.

   dict(zip(keys, values))
   dict(keys=keys, values=values)

and the relationship between the keys and values seems far less obvious 
to me in the keyword variant.

Cheers,
Brian