Merge @mikecunha's additions

[shlicshlac]

Why did you propose typecasting dict.items() calls to lists everywhere?

[KOLANICH]

1. I am not the original author of the code
2. It is a modification 2to3 does. The automatic way to port python 2 code to python 3 is to run 2to3. It is not very intelligent, so it wraps the funcs returning iterators in python 3 that have been returning lists in python 2 into lists.