[Python-Dev] Negative slice steps considered unhealthy (extended slicing for lists) (original) (raw)

Fredrik Lundh Fredrik Lundh" <effbot@telia.com
Tue, 1 Aug 2000 08:20:01 +0200

greg wrote:

I think there are some big conceptual problems with allowing negative steps in a slice.

wasn't "slices" supposed to work the same way as "ranges"?

from PEP-204:

"Extended slices do show, however, that there is already a
perfectly valid and applicable syntax to denote ranges in a way
that solve all of the earlier stated disadvantages of the use of
the range() function"

In the face of such confusion, the only Pythonic thing would seem to be to disallow these things.

...and kill PEP-204 at the same time.