On Oct 17, 5:40 pm, Paul Hankin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > To answer your question though: a += b is *not* the same as a = a + b. > The latter would create a new list and assign it to a, whereas a += b > updates a in-place.
I know I'm being a little finicky here, but how would someone know that a+=b is not the same as a=a+b? Any documentation or reference that mentions this? > Use a += b rather than a.extend(b): I'm not sure what I was thinking. > Anyway, look at 'timeit' to see how to measure things like this, but > my advice would be not to worry and to write the most readable code - > and only optimise if your code's runnign too slowly. I understand. Thanks :) At the same time, however, as someone new learning the language, I feel it always helps to know what the best practices and patterns are at the very outset (at least for someone who chooses to become a good programmer in that language). I mean, for me it's like this, I just don't want to get the work done, I would really want to know why I do something a certain way and not some other way :) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
