Python's simplicity philosophy

[Andrew Dalke]

Alex Martelli:
> "added"?  'max' worked that way since well before I met Python.  But
> to be consistent with your other arguments, no doubt you'd argue for
> a .sort() followed by [-1] as "more general" than max...

Even better (tongue-in-cheek) would be a function to get the
t largest (or s largest to t largest) without necessarily comparing
between elements whose values are guaranteed out of range

Just looked through Knuth for that.  There are various ways
listed, but no neat name to use for that function.  :)
Look under 'select k largest' and 'select kth largest'.  Most
of the hits are in the exercises.  First one is for Hoare, and
there's a reference to Dodgson (Carroll) and lawn tennis.

                    Andrew
                    dalke at dalkescientific.com