language design question

[guthrie]

Steven Bethard wrote:
> Gregory Guthrie wrote:
> 
>> For example,
>>    - why is len() not a member function of strings? Instead one says 
>> len(w).
>  
> Why would ``x.len()`` be any more convenient than ``len(x)``? Your 
> preference here seems pretty arbitrary.
-- Perhaps;
but having all standard operations as a method seems more regular (to 
me), and allows a simple chained operation format of a series of method 
calls, instead of alternating prefix function calls, and post-fix method 
invocations; e.g.
       x.lower().strip().toList().sort().join()
seems cleaner and simpler than the usage below, where the pre/post 
alternation is visually more complex.

I think the mix of OO like methods, and global functions, is not ideal.
> 
>>   - Why doesn't sort() return a value?
>>
>>     This would allow things like:
>>         key = '',join( list(word.lower().strip()).sort() )
> 
> 
> Use sorted():
> 
>     key = ','.join(sorted(word.lower().strip()))
-- Thanks!
(Is the comma in ',' just a typo?)
> 
> 
>>    - Another feature I assumed but it failed, is a nice default for 
>> dictionaries, and more += like operations;
>>    For example: to acculumate words in a dictionary -
>>         dict[key] += [word]
> 
> 
> Get Python 2.5 and use collections.defaultdict:
-- Great, thanks.
> 
> Python 2.5a2 (trunk:46491M, May 27 2006, 14:43:55) [MSC v.1310 32 bit 
> (Intel)] on win32
> Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>  >>> import collections
>  >>> d = collections.defaultdict(int)
>  >>> d['a'] += 5
>  >>> d['b'] += 2
>  >>> d
> defaultdict(<type 'int'>, {'a': 5, 'b': 2})
> 
> STeVe


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