Arithmetic sequences in Python

[Paul Rubin]

Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> writes:
> For finite sequences, your proposal adds nothing new to existing
> solutions like range and xrange.

Oh come on, [5,4,..0] is much easier to read than range(5,-1,-1).

> The only added feature this proposal
> introduces is infinite iterators, and they aren't particularly hard to
> make:
> 
> def arithmetic_sequence(start, step=1):
>     yield start
>     while 1:
>         start += step
>         yield start

Well, that would be itertools.count(start, step) but in general a simple
expression is nicer than 5 lines of code.

> If your proposal included support for ranges of characters, I'd be more
> interested.

There's something to be said for that.  Should ['a'..'z'] be a list or
a string?