Fundamental Function Question (beginner)

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:57:09 +0000, MRAB wrote:

> There's nothing wrong with building dicts or other lookup tables outside
> a function in order to avoid re-creating them every time the function is
> called.

Actually there is, but the benefit (avoiding the re-creation of the 
table) may be worth the cost (loss of encapsulation due to the use of a 
global variable).

Also, it is slightly slower to access a global than to access a local. 
This truly is a micro-optimization, and won't matter one bit for most 
functions, but in some rare cases it may.

But these are just quibbles. In general, I would agree with you.


-- 
Steven