language design question

[Terry Reedy]

"OKB (not okblacke)" <brenNOSPAMbarn at NObrenSPAMbarn.net> wrote in message 
news:Xns97FBA13B0B9BBOKB at 81.174.50.80...
> Terry Reedy wrote:
>
>> Consider
>>>>> map(len, ('abc', (1,2,3), [1,2], {1:2}))
>> [3, 3, 2, 1]
>>
>> Now try to rewrite this using methods (member functions).
>
> [a.len() for a in ('abc', (1,2,3), [1,2], {1:2})]

What I meant and should have said more specificly:
try rewriting the  map call or any similar call of a 2nd-order function as 
a call of the same function using methods.  Map here stands for the class 
of functions that take a function as an arg and apply it to an unknown 
(until runtime) type or to a mixture of types.  Its particular replacement 
(not rewrite, as I meant the word) does not apply to the generic pattern.

This can be done (since 2.2) either with or without using the operater 
module.  Until 2.2, many builtin classes, including strings, tuples, and 
number, did not have visible methods.

The underlying answer to the original question is that while Pyt;hon is 
object-based, it is not strictly OO but is intentionally multiparadigmatic 
and will remain so.  For instance, no one will be forced to replace the 
procedural expression 'a+b' with the strict OO equivalent 'a .__add__(b)'. 
But anyone is free to do so in their own code, just as with ob.__len__() 
for len(ob).

Terry Jan Reedy