Using collections

The collections module provides high-performance alternatives to built-in container types. The main types that are available in this module are as follows:

• deque: A list-like type with extra features
• defaultdict: A dict-like type with a built-in default factory feature
• namedtuple: A tuple-like type that assigns keys for members

We'll discuss these types in the next section.

deque

A deque is an alternative implementation for lists. While the built-in list type is based on ordinary arrays, a deque is based on a doubly-linked list. Hence, a deque is much faster when you need to insert something into its middle or head, but much slower when you need to access an arbitrary index.

Of course, thanks to the...