Array design question

[Peter Slizik]

Hi pythoners,

   after changing some messages in the 'Two dimensional array' thread, 
the discussion turned into somewhat philosophical debate on the way 
Python works with arrays.

   I've been working with languages like PHP and Perl for some time. 
Things so simple in PHP looks very difficult in Python (at least for me).

Simple PHP code

a[1] = 'aaa'
a[2] = 'bbb'
a[3] = 'ccc'

will in Python read

a.append('aaa')
a.append('bbb')
a.append('ccc')

which is in my opinion uglier than PHP code.

I just don't understand, why Python doesn't allow to exceed array 
boundaries. PHP and Perl would resize the array in this case.

Let's have a simple example. Suppose we have the file in format
7 "Text 1"
5 "Text 2"
3 "Text 3"
...
...

Our task is to read the content of the file into the array.

Simple PHP code

while( !eof() ) {
     line = readline();
     (number, text) = split(line);
     array[number] = text;
}

seems untranslatable into Python. The first attempt to store an object 
with index 7 into array before other 6 objects are stored there, will 
cause an exception. But the numbers in the input file aren't in any 
special order.

Is there any reason why Python designers chose this concept? Wouldn't it 
  be more convenient to have PHP-like arrays in Python too?

-- Peter