Cleaner idiom for text processing?

[Peter Hansen]

Duncan Booth wrote:

> What happens if someone works out that izip can be made much faster by 
> consuming its iterators from right to left instead of left to right? That 
> isn't nearly as far fetched as reading ahead.
> 
> Passing the same iterator multiple times to izip is a pretty neat idea, but 
> I would still be happier if the documentation explicitly stated that it 
> consumes its arguments left to right.

Or as an interim measure: write lots of elegant code using that
technique, and then if anyone suggests changing the way it
works the rest of the world will shout "no, it will break code!".
;-)

-Peter