[Python-Dev] Changing the Division Operator -- PEP 238, rev 1.12

[Tim Peters]

[Michael Hudson]
> Hmm.  While I agree that 'or'ing is the best thing to do by default,
> it would be nice if there was some way of requesting a blank starting
> point (this is the other unresolved issue in PEP 236, after all).
> Maybe it's not worth it.

Well, there's no reason at all to believe that whatever future statements
IDLE and doctest (for examples) happen to use in their own implementations
are also appropriate for the user-code they're simulating.  So the problem
isn't solved in full unless that connection can be broken (is that hard?
offhand it *sounds* like it just needs another yes/no argument).

OTOH, IDLE and doctest (for examples) can easily enough be written to use no
future-stmts at all of their own, so that code compiled from them gets a
blank starting point.  Whether that remains easy down the road depends on
how silly we get in introducing stupid future stmts <0.9 wink>.