[Python-Dev] shouldn't we be considering all pending numeric proposals together?

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Skip Montanaro wrote:
> 
> There are several active or could-be-active PEPs related to Python's numeric
> behavior:
> 
>      S   211  pep-0211.txt  Adding A New Outer Product Operator    Wilson
>      S   228  pep-0228.txt  Reworking Python's Numeric Model       Zadka
>      S   237  pep-0237.txt  Unifying Long Integers and Integers    Zadka
>      S   238  pep-0238.txt  Non-integer Division                   Zadka
>      S   239  pep-0239.txt  Adding a Rational Type to Python       Zadka
>      S   240  pep-0240.txt  Adding a Rational Literal to Python    Zadka
>      S   242  pep-0242.txt  Numeric Kinds                          Dubois
> 
> Instead of implementing them piecemeal, shouldn't we be considering them as
> a related group?  For example, implementing any or all of PEPs 237, 239 and
> 240 might well have an effect on what needs to be done for PEP 238.  With
> slight modifications, the proposals in PEP 242 might well subsume PEP 238's
> functionality in a different way.
> 
> If the semantics of arithmetic are going to change, I think they should
> change in the context of expanded capability in the language.

May I suggest that these rather controversial changes be carried
out on a separate branch of the Python source tree before adding 
them to the trunk ?!

The reasoning here is that numerics are so low-level that porting
applications to a new release implementing these changes will
cause a lot of work (mostly due to the dynamic nature of Python).

Another suggestion I would like to make is that the new semantics
are first implemented using alternative subclassed numeric 
objects (e.g. newint()) which can then live side-by-side with the
old semantics types for a few releases until they replace the
old types.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
CEO eGenix.com Software GmbH
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