In article <51c39b88$0$29999$c3e8da3$54964...@news.astraweb.com>, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Jun 2013 09:19:48 -0400, Roy Smith wrote: > > > In article > > <447dd1c6-1bb2-4276-a109-78d7a067b...@d8g2000pbe.googlegroups.com>, > > rusi <rustompm...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> > > def f(a, L=[]): > >> > > Â Â L.append(a) > >> > > Â Â return L > > > >> Every language has gotchas. This is one of python's. > > > > One of our pre-interview screening questions for Python programmers at > > Songza is about this. I haven't been keeping careful statistics, but > > I'd guess only about 50% of the candidates get this right. > > > What exactly is the question? Because it's not always a bug to use a > mutable default, there are good uses for it: It's a screening question; I'd rather not reveal all the details (it's really annoying when you find your screening questions posted to stack overflow). But, yes, I understand that there are good uses.
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