[Python-Dev] RE: python/dist/src/Objects complexobject.c,2.42,2.43

[Tim Peters]

[Tim]
> What's the plan for removing this stuff again when UnixWare fixes
> their bugs?

[Martin v. Loewis]
> There is no plan for that at the moment. Please have a look at
>
> http://sf.net/tracker/?group_id=5470&atid=305470&func=detail&aid=450710
>
> for prior discussion on the matter;

Ya, I knew about that -- it was a rhetorical question <wink>.

> [wishful thinking deleted]

For platforms that Python developers build on every day (Linux and Windows,
possibly Macs), and tens or hundreds of thousands of people run on, such
#ifdef crud probably will go away someday, but I suspect these temporary
UnixWare hacks will infect the code base forever.  So I'd rather let tests
fail there, and simply note in the README that such failures are due to
UnixWare bugs and will go away when UnixWare fixes them.  That's what we do
with, e.g., SGI -O bugs.

As is, the code is obfuscated forever, and may well just be swapping one set
of bugs for another.  For example, the replacement for atan2 isn't correct,
as it ignores the sign of the zero, and atan2 on a 754 box should pay
attention to that.

>>> from math import atan2
>>> z = 0.0
>>> atan2(z, -1)
3.1415926535897931
>>> atan2(-z, -1)
-3.1415926535897931
>>>

So now we've got a different UnixWare bug, which will persist even after
UnixWare fixes *their* errors because we're #ifdef'ing their implementation
away.

I don't view that as a problem unique to this patch set, but as a
predictable (in outline) consequence of trying to worm around
minority-platform bugs via #ifdef.