[Python-Dev] performance of {} versus dict()

[Brian Curtin]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 10:12 AM, Mark Adam <dreamingforward at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 3:12 AM, Chris Withers <chris at simplistix.co.uk> wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> A colleague pointed me at Doug's excellent article here:
>> ...which made me a little sad, I suspect I'm not the only one who finds:
>>
>> a_dict = dict(
>>     x = 1,
>>     y = 2,
>>     z = 3,
>>     ...
>>     )
>>
>> ...easier to read than:
>>
>> a_dict = {
>>     'x':1,
>>     'y':2,
>>     'z':3,
>>     ...
>>     }
>
> Hey, it makes me a little sad that dict breaks convention by allowing
> the use of unquoted characters (which everywhere else looks like
> variable names) just for a silly typing optimization.

What convention and typing optimization is this? I hope you aren't
suggesting it should be dict("x"=1) or dict("x":1)?