[Python-Dev] Tuples vs. lists (original) (raw)

Tim Peters tim.one@home.com
Mon, 4 Feb 2002 15:36:52 -0500

[Guido]

I hate to continue harping on this tiny item in public, but what woud you do if you needed a constant dictionary?

[Aahz]

All right, I guess it's time for me to just follow the Python motto: "There's only one way, and that way is Guido's."

Well, the other one way is to agitate for, e.g., accepting the new digraphs

{? ?}

as delimiting a constant dict .

If I were Aahz, I'd keep using tuples: a serious BCD user can have gazillions of these objects sitting around, and tuples also allow significant memory savings over lists. If you have to, think of the digits '3' and '7' of being different types, so that you can fool Guido into believing it's not a homogeneous collection (he doesn't read the fine print in math-related code ).

practicality-beats-purity-ly y'rs - tim