[Python-Dev] copy, len and the like as 'object' methods? (original) (raw)

James_Althoff@i2.com James_Althoff@i2.com
Mon, 27 Aug 2001 11:17:25 -0700

Tim Peters wrote:

Say what?! What kind of stupid-ass language spells the len() function as if it were a method? That's carrying consistency to an irrational extreme --

Well, only those stupid-ass, irrational, and extremist languages that include classes and methods as an integral and uniform part of the language from the very beginning, I guess.

The "stupid-ass, irrational, extremist" side is merely saying that

mylist.append(x) mylist.length() mylist.extend(y) mylist.length()

is more sensible (easier for new-to-python programmers to discover, more consistent, more mainstream)

than

mylist.append(x) len(mylist) mylist.extend(y) len(mylist)

and that len(mylist) as syntactic sugar for mylist.len() is sugar that adds no value compared to just doing the straightforward thing of writing mylist.length() or mylist.len().

But you all clearly like spelling it len(mylist) and it's already there, so ... whatever.

Jim