[Python-Dev] defaultdict proposal round three (original) (raw)

Raymond Hettinger raymond.hettinger at verizon.net
Wed Feb 22 01:54:57 CET 2006

Alex Martelli wrote:

If we call the type autodict, then having the factory attribute named autofactory seems to fit. Or just 'factory', since it's the only kind of factory the object is going to have.

Gack, no. You guys are drifting towards complete ambiguity. You might as well call it "thingie_that_doth_return_an_object". The word "factory" by itself says nothing about lookups and default values. Like "autodict" could mean anything. Keep in mind that we may well end-up having this side-by-side with collections.ordered_dict. The word "auto" tells you nothing about how this is different from a regular dict or ordered dictionary. It's meaningless.

Please, stick with defaultdictionary and default_factory. While not perfectly descriptive, they are suggest just enough to jog the memory and make the code readable. Try to resist generalizing the name into nothingness.

Raymond

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