That's not a good idiom, because it only allows you to loop over small ranges:
>>> for i in range(1000000000):
... print i
...
python2.4(1261) malloc: *** vm_allocate(size=4000002048) failed (error code=3)
python2.4(1261) malloc: *** error: can't allocate region
python2.4(1261) malloc: *** set a breakpoint in szone_error to debug
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
MemoryError
Why attempt to allocate such a large list when you just want to do something several times?
xrange() addresses the problem you describe and has been in Python since, like, forever. However, range() is nicer for learning the language, since it's easy to see how it composes into a list.
