Alex Martelli wrote:
>>>> print set([1,2,3])
> set([1, 2, 3])
>
> input and output could be identical. Do YOU have any good reason why
> sets should print out as set(...) and lists should NOT print out as
> list(...)? Is 'list' somehow "deeper" than 'set', to deserve a special
> display-form syntax which 'set' doesn't get? Or are you enshrining a
> historical accident to the level of an erroneously assumed principle?
These are valid points, but they lead me to the opposite conclusion: Why
not let {a,b,c} stand for set([a,b,c])? That would be very intuitive
since it is the mathematical notation already and since it resembles the
notation of dictionaries which are similar to sets.
(This has been probably discussed already. One problem I'm already
seeing is that {} would be ambiguous.)
Anyway, I think the fact that the notation for a set is clumsy is no
good reason to make the notation for a list clumsy as well.
-- Christoph
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