max() of a list of tuples

[Erik Max Francis]

Martin Maney wrote:

> Why not (None,None,None) as the initial value?

You're guaranteed that in any given implementation, the ordering of None
and numerics will be consistent, but you've no guarantee which will be
bigger.  If None < -1e16 on your implementation, that's just a lucky
conicidence; the interpreter would legitimately have None > -1e16.

It's an implementation defined area, and as such, your program shouldn't
rely on it if you want portability.

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