On Mar 23, 6:59 am, Stefan Behnel <stefan...@behnel.de> wrote: > Antoon Pardon, 23.03.2011 14:53: > > > On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 12:59:55PM +0000, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > >> The removal of cmp from the sort method of lists is probably the most > >> disliked change in Python 3. On the python-dev mailing list at the > >> moment, Guido is considering whether or not it was a mistake. > > >> If anyone has any use-cases for sorting with a comparison function that > >> either can't be written using a key function, or that perform really > >> badly when done so, this would be a good time to speak up. > > > How about a list of tuples where you want them sorted first item in > > ascending > > order en second item in descending order. > > You can use a stable sort in two steps for that.
How about this one: you have are given an obscure string collating function implented in a C library you don't have the source to. Or how about this: I'm sitting at an interactive session and I have a convenient cmp function but no convenient key, and I care more about the four minutes it'd take to whip up a clever key function or an adapter class than the 0.2 seconds I'd save to on sorting time. Removing cmp from sort was a mistake; it's the most straightforward and natural way to sort in many cases. Reason enough for me to keep it. Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
