[Python-Dev] Proposal: defaultdict (original) (raw)

Raymond Hettinger raymond.hettinger at verizon.net
Sun Feb 19 03:10:42 CET 2006

[Greg Ewing]

Would people perhaps feel better if defaultdict wasn't a subclass of dict, but a distinct mapping type of its own? That would make it clearer that it's not meant to be a drop-in replacement for a dict in arbitrary contexts.

Absolutely. That's the right way to avoid Liskov violations from altered invariants and API changes. Besides, with Python's propensity for duck typing, there's no reason to subclass when we don't have to.

Raymond

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