[Python-ideas] Generator unpacking

[Erik]

On 13/02/16 00:03, Andrew Barnert wrote:
> On Feb 12, 2016, at 15:35, Michael Selik <mike at selik.org
> <mailto:mike at selik.org>> wrote:
> Creating a range just to zip with just to throw away the values seems
> like overcomplicating things. Unless there's some performance benefit to
> doing it that way, why not just keep it simple?

I agree. I've never used islice() before, so I missed that as a better 
way of yielding the first 'n' values.

> That's exactly what was in my email, as the way to do things today,
> which he was replying to:
>
>>     Or you can use itertools.islice to make it more compact:
>>     >
>>     >      >>> a, b = itertools.islice(c, 2)
>>     >      >>> rest = c
>
> So I think we can assume that he thinks his version improves over that,
> or he wouldn't have suggested it...

My "suggestion" was simply that perhaps creating a very short wrapper 
function somewhere that handles whether the sequence is already an 
iterator or not etc (and using islice() or whatever - I don't really 
care ;)) would perhaps be a more pragmatic option than trying to squeeze 
in some syntax change or underlying unpack heuristic/mechanic (which is 
where I thought the thread was heading).

Perhaps I didn't express that very clearly. I'm happy do drop it ;)

E.