> I should point out that this wasn't a mere whimsy on Guido's part.
> Mathematically, supporting larger-than and less-than comparisons on
> complex numbers *is* a bug -- they're simply meaningless mathematically.
> (Which is greater, 2-1i or -1+2i?)
However, that's true for many other values that *where* ordered in 2.x.
Which is greater, (1,2) or [1,2]? It's meaningless mathematically.
Likewise (if you claim that comparing lists and tuples is like comparing
apples and oranges) - how should these be ordered:
file("/etc/passwd"), file("/etc/group"), and sys.stdin?
> What Python needs[1] is a "sorting" operator, which is allowed to return
> a consistent if arbitrary sort order (perhaps lexicographic sort order?),
> separate from the ordinary > and < operators. This would allow the caller
> to sort lists of arbitrary items for display purposes, without implying
> anything about the relative size of items.
And indeed, that's available, by means of the key= argument to list.sort.
Regards,
Martin
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