[Python-Dev] Set options (original) (raw)

Greg Stein gstein@lyra.org
Tue, 21 Mar 2000 10:40:20 -0800 (PST)

On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, Jeremy Hylton wrote:

>>>>> "MAL" == M -A Lemburg <mal@lemburg.com> writes: MAL> Perhaps someone could take Aaron's kjbuckets and write a Python MAL> emulation for it (I think he's even already done something like MAL> this for gadfly). Then the emulation could go into the core and MAL> if people want speed they can install his extension (the MAL> emulation would have to detect this and use the real thing MAL> then).

I've been waiting for Tim Peters to say something about sets, but I'll chime in with what I recall him saying last time a discussion like this came up on c.l.py. (I may misremember, in which case I'll at least draw him into the discussion in order to correct me <0.5 wink>.) The problem with a set module is that there are a number of different ways to implement them -- in C using kjbuckets is one example. Each approach is appropriate for some applications, but not for every one. A set is pretty simple to build from a list or a dictionary, so we leave it to application writers to write the one that is appropriate for their application.

Yah... +1 on what Jeremy said.

Leave them out of the distro since we can't do them Right for all people.

Cheers, -g

-- Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/