On Wed, 01 Mar 2006 12:26:19 +1100 Ben Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Steven Bethard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > -1 on the proposal as-is. I don't have many use cases > > for enumerations, and I don't think they merit appearing > > in the builtins. If you put them in the collections > > module instead, I'd probably be +0. > > This seems to be a common distinction. > > Should I amend the PEP to propose "either in the builtins > or in the collections module"? Or should I propose two > PEPs and let them compete?
My recommendation is to drop the "builtins" suggestion altogether. If it goes into the stdlib and becomes popular, write a PEP suggesting it move to builtins *then*. That would follow the example of "sets". I for one think that builtins is already too large (though I admit I'm unsure what should be removed). Enumerations are used infrequently enough that they should be a module (e.g. "decimal" numbers are probably more common). > > For the few cases of enumerations that I've needed, I've > > never wanted them to be comparable with <, >, etc. If > > there were two classes, say ``collections.Enum`` and > > ``collections.OrderedEnum`` where only the latter made > > the enumerated items comparable, you might even get me > > as high as +0.5. (I only care about the non-comparable > > one, but I understand that others may have a need for > > the comparable one.) > > Replies to your post indicate this is another popular > distinction. > > But the terminology is broken. The term "enumerated" seems > to me to imply that it does have an order. Can you suggest > a term other than "enumerated" for what you're describing > with the unordered property? Well, I personally don't find the term that broken, but as I say, the term "Vocabulary" has been used. There is "Open Vocabulary" and "Closed Vocabulary" to define the mutable and immutable cases respectively. But they're long names. Plus, you need a name for the individual values. So there are a number of possibilities: EnumValue / Enum Symbol / SymbolSet Word / Vocabulary Symbol / Vocabulary (what I used for "open" case) Symbol / Enum (what I used for "closed" case) Word / WordSet Label / LabelSet I'm sure there are others. Word has the disadvantage of also meaning "32-bit integer" to a lot of CS people. Or perhaps a string. Not immediately an indivisible symbol. Symbol probably has a dozen overloaded meanings, though I'm not sure what other people will think when they read it (it actually seems right to me, obviously). Label was what I first called these. But I realize that label describes a probably use of a symbol, not the symbol itself. -- Terry Hancock ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
