On Friday, October 12, 2012 10:22:16 AM UTC+8, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > On Wed, 10 Oct 2012 23:44:42 -0700, suzaku wrote: > > > > > I think if a programmer has used the built-in `random` module before, he > > > would expect a function with "sample" in its name to return a population > > > sequence. > > > > I have used the random module for about fifteen years, and I still write > > random.sample when I need to use random.choice. > > > > In statistics, probability, and plain English, a sample can be a single > > item: that's why we can say "a sample" or "two samples".
Thanks for sharing your experience. As I'm not a native speaker of English, when I learned that `random.choice` return single item, and `random.sample` return a sequence of items, I thought that the behaviour is determined by their definitions. > > > > > > > If a function is to return scalar value instead of sequence, I would > > > expect it to be named "choice". > > > > And I wouldn't. But what do I care? I'm never going to use the code > > you're talking about, so call it "sasquatch" if you like, it's no skin > > off my nose. > > > > :) > > > > > > -- > > Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
