oh yes my bad

permutations refers to the name of the function i.e., the user is using a recursive function as his solution

yes, but as i recall you should import itertools module first before use the permutations method, and clearly there is no import command in the code above. does this "permutations" refered to the name of the function?

e.g.,

permutations = 'abcde'
print(permutations[:2]+permutations[2+1:])

will return

abde

what does "permutations(s[:i]+s[i+1:])" do?

I figured it out. Variable "result" is limited and unique to the scope of each function call.

Not sure if anyone is going to read this but how is this recursion able to retain the result list? Won't result be cleared each time permutations is run?

Make sure you account for the empty string!

Learn how to read code before doing this kind of statement just after doing that one on another solution: you're basically saying that the SAME approach is bad and then good... (btw: using the dedicated module but not to use it in the simplest way... how could it be better???) Choose your side. Do it wisely. Or don't comment.

By the way, the present solution is absolutely awful and not at all pythonic. The other one, is...

I really like this approach. Very pythonic for a difficult algorithm!!!