[Python-3000] Two proposals for a new list-like type: one modest, one radical (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Mon Apr 23 20:38:07 CEST 2007

On 4/23/07, Daniel Stutzbach <daniel at stutzbachenterprises.com> wrote:

I have two proposals for Python 3000 that I'll write PEP(s) for if there's interest. The first proposal is, I think, a modest one. The second proposal is related, but more radical. I fully expect the second proposal to be rejected for that alone, especially since I am a relatively an outsider to the Python developer community (though it was great to meet some of you at PyCon this year). I bring up the more radical proposal primarily for completeness.

The Modest Proposal ------------------------------- As a pet project, I've written a container type that looks, acts, and quacks like a Python list(), but has better asymptotic performance. Specifically, O(log n) time for inserts and deletes in the middle of the list. I'd like to offer it for inclusion in the collections module. [...]

The Radical Proposal -------------------------------

Replace list() with the BList.

Some meta-comments:

(1) You really need Raymond Hettinger's review. Nothing else matters much.

(2) I'm against proliferation of data types, because it makes the choices for developers harder. For that reason, I'd be against the modest proposal without the radical proposal. But I'd be in favor of the radical proposal if the pragmatics (mostly of existing core code and 3rd party extensions using the PyList_* APIs) can be solved, and if the performance is uniformly better.

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

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