Why the “mutable default argument fix” syntax is so ugly, asks python newbie

Question

^{Now following my series of \"python newbie questions\" and based on another question.}

Prerogative

Go to http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pyco

Answer 1

This is better than good_append(), IMO:

def ok_append(new_item, a_list=None):
    return a_list.append(new_item) if a_list else [ new_item ]

You could also be extra careful and check that a_list was a list...