Is vars() the most useless Python built-in ever?

[eryk sun]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 7:00 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> Either way, vars() doesn't solve the problem. What problem does it solve?

vars() used to be the way to list local variables.

>From 4 May 1994, Python 1.0.2 [1]:

    vars() returns a dictionary containing the local variables;
    vars(m) returns a dictionary containing the variables of
    module m.  Note: dir(x) is now equivalent to
    vars(x).keys().

>From 13 October 1995, Python 1.3 [2]:

    Two new built-in functions, "globals()" and "locals()",
    provide access to dictionaries containming [sic] current
    global and local variables, respectively.  (These
    augment rather than replace "vars()", which returns the
    current local variables when called without an argument,
    and a module's global variables when called with an
    argument of type module.)

[1]: https://hg.python.org/cpython/file/v1.3/Misc/HISTORY#l386
[2]: https://hg.python.org/cpython/file/v1.3/Misc/NEWS#l55