[Python-3000] Making more effective use of slice objects in Py3k (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Tue Aug 29 04:24:59 CEST 2006

On 8/28/06, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:

Guido van Rossum wrote:

> You seem to be utterly convinced of the superior performance of your > proposal without having done any measurements. For my part, superior performance isn't the main reason for considering string views. Rather it's the simplification that would result from replacing the current ad-hoc set of optional start-stop arguments with a single easy-to-remember idiom. What are your thoughts on that aspect?

A few days ago I posted a bit of code using start-stop arguments and the same code written using string views. I didn't think the latter looked better. The start-stop arguments are far from arbitrary. They are only ad-hoc in the sense that they haven't been added to every API -- only where they're needed occasionally for performance.

I still fear that a meme will develop that will encourage the use of views in many cases where they aren't needed; newbies are more prone to premature optimization than experienced developers, for whom this feature is intended, and newbies will more likely copy sections of code without understanding when/why various complexifications are necessary.

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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