alt Hacker NewsI find that decision a bit odd given that accumulating a string with a loop is also quadratic in Python if you use = instead of +=, or even if you use += when the left operand isn't provably unshared. I don't believe removing loops was seriously considered.
The footgun isn't `reduce` in particular, but failing to use `join`.
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edflsafoiewq • yesterday at 11:44 PM
Doesn't reduce force the accumulator to be shared though? Both the reduce and the lambda are holding onto references to acc, which defeats any "single reference" optimizations.
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I suppose `reduce` as built-in is the footgun because it's too easy to reach for. Now if someone doesn't know about `join` perhaps they look up how to do it because they think 'surely there's a better way than a loop without an import'.