Counter Class -- Bag/Multiset

[Giovanni Bajo]

On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:11:37 -0800, Raymond Hettinger wrote:

> The collections module in Python 2.7 and Python 3.1 has gotten a new
> Counter class that works like bags and multisets in other languages.
> 
> I've adapted it for Python2.5/2.6 so people can start using it right
> away:
>   http://docs.python.org/dev/library/collections.html#counter-objects
> 
> Here's a link to the docs for the new class:
>   http://code.activestate.com/recipes/576611/

Hi Raymond,

* I'm not a native speaker, but why use the word "Counter"? A "counter" 
to my ear sounds like a number that is increased each time an event 
occurs; the website counter, eg, comes to mind. I can understanda its 
meaning probably stretches to "an object that counts", but I really can't 
think of it as a group of object, or a container of object. Moreover, I 
find it a much more useful abstraction the idea of a "multi-set" (that 
is, a set where elements can appear with multiple cardinality), rather 
than stressing the concept of "counting" how many times each element 
appears in the set.

* I find it *very* confusing c.items() vs c.elements(). Items and 
elements are synonymous (again, in my understanding of English).

All in all, I think I prefer your previous bag class:
http://code.activestate.com/recipes/259174/

-- 
Giovanni Bajo
Develer S.r.l.
http://www.develer.com