On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 09:32:42 -0500, D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote: > On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:23:58 +1100 > Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> wrote: >> D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote: >> >> > First of all, list is a reserved word. Don't use it as a variable >> > name. >> >> Unless you mean to. Shadowing built-ins is only a bad thing when you do >> it by accident. > > I suppose but I am having a hard time trying to think of some good > reason to replace a builtin function that creates a list with a list > object. > >>>> list = list((1,2,3)) >>>> list((1,2,3)) > Traceback (most recent call last): > File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> > TypeError: 'list' object is not callable
There may not be a positive reason in favour of it, but in a small function that doesn't call list() and never will, there's no reason *against* using the name 'list'. Sometimes generic names like 'list' (or if you prefer, 'alist') are sensible, and in those cases, shadowing the list built-in may be a matter of taste. I personally don't like it, but some people obviously do. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
