[Python-Dev] Sets are mappings? (original) (raw)

Aahz aahz at pythoncraft.com
Wed Dec 21 17:04:32 CET 2005

On Wed, Dec 21, 2005, Michael Chermside wrote:

So I have a counter-proposal. Let's NOT create a hierarchy of abstract base types for the elementary types of Python. (Even basestring feels like a minor wart to me, although for now it seems like we need it.) If the core problem is "how do you create a canonical ordering for objects that survives serialization and deserialization into a different VM?", then somehow abstract base types doesn't seem like the most obvious solution. And if that's not the problem we're trying to solve here, then what IS? Because I don't know of very many ACTUAL (as opposed to theoretical) use cases for abstract base classes of fundamental types.

You've got a good point, but the documentation issue still exists; that's what I was more interested in. Clearly lists, tuples, and strings are sequences; clearly dicts are a mapping; the question is whether sets get tossed in with dicts. Overall, I think it's pretty clear that the answer is "no", particularly given that sets don't support getitem().

Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

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