[Python-Dev] Revamping Python's Numeric Model

[Tim Peters]

[Guido]
> ABC's forcing was as simple as writing ~x or mixing inexact numbers.
> We did have the notion that 1.0 was an exact literal (to me it looks
> exact!) so maybe that was an additional problem.

I seriously wonder whether that was *the* problem with ABC:  not only was
1.0 treated as an exact rational in ABC, so was 6.02e23 and 3.14159e-314
etc.  At least for me, this caused rationals to get used in many places I
*intended* to use floats.  I assume many others got burned by this too, as
I'd say it's impossible for users coming from other languages not to see
6.02e23 etc as float literals.