a suggestion for a feature change

[nilamo]

So it's kind of like the dict's .get() method, except it also .pop()'s the index?

What about something like this, wrapped up in a module so NoDefault is namespaced correctly?

>>> NoDefault = (None, )
>>> class DefaultList(list):
...   def _pop_default(self, index=0, default_value=NoDefault):
...     try:
...       value = self._pop_original(index)
...       return value
...     except IndexError as err:
...       if default_value is not NoDefault:
...         return default_value
...       raise err
...   def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
...     super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
...     self._pop_original = self.pop
...     self.pop = self._pop_default
...
>>> items = DefaultList(["spam", "eggs", "foo", "bar"])
>>> items
['spam', 'eggs', 'foo', 'bar']
>>> items[3]
'bar'
>>> items.pop()
'spam'
>>> items
['eggs', 'foo', 'bar']
>>> items.pop(1)
'foo'
>>> items
['eggs', 'bar']
>>> items.pop(5, "default")
'default'
>>> items.pop(5, None)
>>> items.pop(5)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 9, in _default_pop
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in _default_pop
IndexError: pop index out of range
>>> items
['eggs', 'bar']