[Python-Dev] Adding start to enumerate()

[Nick Coghlan]

Terry Reedy wrote:
> "Nick Coghlan" <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:4828C59B.8070008 at gmail.com...
> | I'd like to hear from Raymond before we do this. I'm pretty sure we had
> | a reason for *not* doing it that way in when enumerate() was added, but
> | I can't remember what that reason might have been...
> 
> http://bugs.python.org/issue2831 

Thanks. I think this part is the main reason I see a start argument to 
enumerate as potentially problematic:

"""all variants can easily be misread as starting at the nth item in the
    sequence (much like islice() does now):   enumerate(3, 'abcdefg') -->
    (3,'d') (4,'e') (5, 'f') (6, 'g')."""

Is the need to use zip(count(3), seq) for the offset index case really 
such a burden given the associated benefits in keeping the builtin 
function really simple and easy to understand?

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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