Python's simplicity philosophy

[Paul Rubin]

David Eppstein <eppstein at ics.uci.edu> writes:
> > Python sometimes seems to go out of its way to thrwart the use of
> > functional style.  Look at list.sort returning None, for example.
> 
> The issue here is not that it returns None, but that it changes its 
> input.  To be truly functional, it should return a new list and leave 
> the original list unchanged.  Returning None is just a helpful reminder 
> that it's not functional.  Of course, the functional version would often 
> be less efficient...

Hmmm, good point.  Returning None is still inconvenient of course.