dict literals vs dict(**kwds)

[George Sakkis]

Although I consider dict(**kwds) as one of the few unfortunate design
choices in python since it prevents the future addition of useful
keyword arguments (e.g a default value or an orderby function), I've
been finding myself lately using it sometimes instead of dict literals,
for no particular reason. Is there any coding style consensus on when
should dict literals be preferred over dict(**kwds) and vice versa ?

George