[Python-ideas] Please reconsider the Boolean evaluation of midnight

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Guido van Rossum writes:

 > It's also not something for which a deprecation warning would work
 > well. (When would it be issued? Whenever bool(<time>) is called?

Yes! Yes! Yes!  Just joking -- that's got to be the wrong thing to do,
because it would warn on precisely the construct (None as sentinel for
"uninitialized") that's the only reason anybody wants this.

 > Or only when it's about to return False?)

That seems reasonable to me.  People who are testing for this are
presumably *constructing* instances of midnight, either with a crontab
of "* * * * *" or in a simulation -- they'll hit it frequently.  The
other case that seems plausible is using a zero time as a sentinel for
"uninitialized" or "unspecified", and that *must* get a warning.

 > Fearing I have said nothing new,

IIRC, you're the only person to have mentioned the pragmatic issues
about the DeprecationWarning.