[Python-ideas] Empty set, Empty dict

David Mertz mertz at gnosis.cx
Tue Jun 10 18:39:56 CEST 2014


>
> On Wednesday, May 21, 2014 12:33:30 PM UTC-4, Frédéric Legembre wrote:
>>
>>
>>    Now   |  Future  |
>> ----------------------------------------------------
>>    ()    |   ()     |  empty tuple  ( 1, 2, 3 )
>>    []    |   []     |  empty list   [ 1, 2, 3 ]
>>    set() |   {}     |  empty set    { 1, 2, 3 }
>>    {}    |   {:}    |  empty dict   { 1:a, 2:b, 3:c }
>
>
This is *exactly* what I would want if I were designing a language from
scratch.  It's obvious, readable, etc.  However, it also breaks every
single instance of 'newdict = {}' in Python code, which is a very common
idiom.

Unfortunately, I don't really like the proposed empty-set literal proposed
in the thread: '{,}'.  It saves two characters over 'set()', but is not
intuitive to me.

-- 
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from the bellies of the hungry; books from the hands of the
uneducated; technology from the underdeveloped; and putting
advocates of freedom in prisons.  Intellectual property is
to the 21st century what the slave trade was to the 16th.
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