[Python-Dev] Re: Rich comparisons

[Edward Loper]

>>Tim Delaney's suggestion [1] seemed pretty reasonable.  In particular:
>>
>>   - Ensure that NaN is a singleton (like True and False).  I.e., the
>>     float constructor checks if the float is NaN, and if so returns a
>>     singleton.
> 
> And we do that... how, exactly?
 >
> [...]
 >
> Without wanting to sound patronizing or rude -- but risking it anyway
> -- you're not giving the impression of understanding these issues any
> more than I do, and I *know* I don't understand them well enough to
> get them straight.

You're right -- I apparently don't understand the issues well enough. 
And (worse) I didn't understand how far my understanding went.  I was 
basing my proposal on Tim Delaney's suggestion and on a couple quick 
experiments on my 2 machines.  Given that things aren't as simple as I 
had hoped they were, I guess I'll leave it up to people who know more to 
figure it out.

But I'm not particularly happy about the fact that you have to be an 
expert to understand the intricacies of basic arithmetic with floats 
(not that I have a way to fix it).

-Edward