[Python-Dev] For review: PEP 285: Adding a bool type

[Tim Peters]

[Tim]
>> Don't mix bools with ints with control structures,

[David Abrahams]
> That mixing was your suggestion, if I recall <.02 wink>

Of course:  it solved your problem.  That you went on to whine about it
isn't really my doing <wink>.

> ...
> I think you were the one who taught me the wonderful (x and [y] or
> [z])[0] trick, so yes, I'm aware of that.

Well, I invented that one, so I suppose it's possible.  I've never actually
used it, though.

> On the other hand (I hope I'm a flame-retard now), people shouldn't
> have to do stuff like that, especially in a world with bool.

Nobody has ever had to do stuff like that; fear of if/else is baffling to
me.  I supported adding a ?: ternary workalike to Python anyway, and Guido
even implemented one, but gave up on it.  Unfortunately, the reasons for
rejection were never recorded in a PEP.

> In any case,  it seems to me that it's been correctly noted that you
> /will/ see these mixtures for quite some time to come, because of legacy
> code.

Yes.  I don't mind them at all.

>> Na, do this:
>>
>> def bool(e):
>>     return e and 'True' or 'False'

> Harrumph. The builtin doesn't create strings, but bools. I don't think
> doctest is going to ignore the quotes.

Damn, you're right.  I'll patch doctest to special-case the snot out of
those specific strings <wink>.  In the meantime,

def ibool(e):
    return e and 1 or 0
    # or "return operator.truth(e)"

will work across all Pythons forever, or back to 1.4 if you use
operator.truth to avoid offending yourself <wink>.