[Python-Dev] cpython (3.2): don't mention implementation detail

John O'Connor jxo6948 at rit.edu
Tue Dec 20 13:29:31 CET 2011


On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 6:24 AM, Dirkjan Ochtman <dirkjan at ochtman.nl> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 11:27, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:
>> And I remember that Guido has
>> asked that the manual not discuss big O()
>> behavior of the methods of builtin classes.
>
> Do you know when/where he did that? It seems useful to know that on
> CPython, list.insert(0, x) will become slow as the list grows... It
> probably shouldn't be upfront, but O() hints for some of the core
> stuff seems useful (though again, in some cases they should probably
> be limited to CPython).

I think the question of the day is whether the documentation is
targeting those who wish to have an understanding of what is happening
under the hood, or those that want to take such details for granted. I
much prefer the little notes and performance hints.

- John


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