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comprehending data

Tonight’s talk: Does list suffer from set envy?

List: Set:
[sings] “Anything you can do, I can do better. I can
do anything better than you.” I’m resisting the urge to say, “No, you can’t.”
Instead, let me ask you: what about handling
duplicates? When I see them, I throw them away
automatically.
Can you spell “d-a-t-a l-o-s-s”? Getting rid of data
automatically sounds kinda dangerous to me.
But that’s what I’m supposed to do. Sets aren’t
allowed duplicate values.
Seriously?
Yes. That’s why I exist…to store sets of values.
Which, when it’s needed, is a real lifesaver.

And that’s all you do?
That’s all I need to do.

And they pay you for that?!? Very funny. You’re just being smug in an effort
to hide from the fact that you can’t get rid of

duplicates on your own.

Have you ever considered that I like my duplicate
values. I’m very fond of them, you know.
Yeah, right. Except when you don’t need them.
Which isn’t very often. And, anyway, I can always
rely on the kindness of others to help me out with
any duplicates that I don’t need. I think you meant to say, “the kindness of set()”,
didn’t you?

To extract the data you need, replace
Do this! all of that list iteration code in your
current program with four calls to
sorted(set(...))[0:3].

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