Merge pull request #576 from emilydolson/master

Resolved issue #174 by subdividing list idioms and replacing dict w/ set

Author: sigmavirus24

docs/writing/style.rst

@@ -351,6 +351,8 @@ Instead, use a list comprehension:
 
     four_lists = [[] for __ in xrange(4)]
 
+Create a string from a list
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 A common idiom for creating strings is to use :py:meth:`str.join` on an empty
 string.
@@ -363,30 +365,53 @@ string.
 This will set the value of the variable *word* to 'spam'. This idiom can be
 applied to lists and tuples.
 
+Searching for an item in a collection
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
 Sometimes we need to search through a collection of things. Let's look at two
-options: lists and dictionaries.
+options: lists and sets.
 
 Take the following code for example:
 
 .. code-block:: python
 
-    d = {'s': [], 'p': [], 'a': [], 'm': []}
+    s = set(['s', 'p', 'a', 'm'])
     l = ['s', 'p', 'a', 'm']
 
-    def lookup_dict(d):
-        return 's' in d
+    def lookup_set(s):
+        return 's' in s
 
     def lookup_list(l):
         return 's' in l
 
-Even though both functions look identical, because *lookup_dict* is utilizing
-the fact that dictionaries in Python are hashtables, the lookup performance
-between the two is very different. Python will have to go through each item
-in the list to find a matching case, which is time consuming. By analysing
-the hash of the dictionary, finding keys in the dictionary can be done very
-quickly.  For more information see this
+Even though both functions look identical, because *lookup_set* is utilizing
+the fact that sets in Python are hashtables, the lookup performance
+between the two is very different. To determine whether an item is in a list,
+Python will have to go through each item until it finds a matching item. 
+This is time consuming, especially for long lists. In a set, on the other
+hand, the hash of the item will tell Python where in the set to look for
+a matching item. As a result, the search can be done quickly, even if the
+set is large. Searching in dictionaries works the same way. For 
+more information see this
 `StackOverflow <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/513882/python-list-vs-dict-for-look-up-table>`_
-page.
+page. For detailed information on the amount of time various common operations
+take on each of these data structures, see 
+`this page <https://wiki.python.org/moin/TimeComplexity?>`_.
+
+Because of these differences in performance, it is often a good idea to use 
+sets or dictionaries instead of lists in cases where: 
+
+* The collection will contain a large number of items
+
+* You will be repeatedly searching for items in the collection
+
+* You do not have duplicate items. 
+
+For small collections, or collections which you will not frequently be 
+searching through, the additional time and memory required to set up the 
+hashtable will often be greater than the time saved by the improved search 
+speed.
+
 
 Zen of Python
 -------------