shuffling elements of a list

[Ben Finney]

"Gerard Flanagan" <grflanagan at yahoo.co.uk> writes:

> Ben Finney wrote:
> >         pile_index = 0
> >         for card in deck:
> >             piles[pile_index].append(card)
> >             pile_index = (pile_index + 1) % numpiles
> >
> 
> no need to maintain an index ;-)
> 
>         piles = [ list() for _ in range(n) ]
>         for i, card in enumerate(deck):
>             piles[i % numpiles].append(card)

That's a matter of style. I prefer what I wrote, since I've given an
explicit name to the calculation you're doing inside the [] operator;
that way, anyone reading the code knows *why* the calculation is done
in this particular case.

If, of course, the index was a simple increment-by-one each time, your
'enumerate' usage would be clearer.

-- 
 \           "We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives |
  `\          teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve years |
_o__)        telling them to sit down and shut up."  -- Phyllis Diller |
Ben Finney