a clean way to define dictionary

[Alexander Schmolck]

Skip Montanaro <skip at pobox.com> writes:

>     >> In 2.3, you can express this as dict(foo=1, bar='sean') without a
>     >> need to define a function for the purpose.
> 
>     Alexander> Yuck! This seems like a really bad idea to me. This
>     Alexander> effectively makes it impossible to specify any options (such
>     Alexander> as initial size, default value etc.)  
> 
> I don't see that the behavior of dict() affects your ability to define the
> behavior of a subclass.
> 
  
OK, I admit this is an overstatement, but ideally you'd like to be able to use
a subclass in place of its superclass everywhere, and that includes
constructor syntax compatibility (e.g.: ``type(some_dict)(foo=bar)`` to create
a new dictionary of the same type as some_dict).


'as