[Biopython-dev] Rethinking Seq objects

[Michael Hoffman]

On Thu, 28 Apr 2005, Frédéric Sohm wrote:

> 1) get rid of MutableSeq and make all Seq mutable.
> Will it not be a problem for some people there? I mean I only use MutableSeq so
> noproblem there for me but I assume that someone uses non-mutable Seq or is it a
> feature which is not needed?

In the rest of CPython, immutable have two benefits: they are more
memory-efficient (and sometimes space-efficient), and they are
hashable. I don't think Seqs are usefully hashable right now, and
Michiel says he will code the new Seq such that there won't be a
significant performance impact.
-- 
Michael Hoffman <hoffman at ebi.ac.uk>
European Bioinformatics Institute