Conditional operator in Python?

[Russell E. Owen]

In article <3AC6BB2E.1E09B5AA at alcyone.com>,
 Erik Max Francis <max at alcyone.com> wrote:

>...
>On a vaguely related subject, why is there no Boolean type in Python? 
>Seems like it would clean things up a great deal -- my understanding is
>that there is even an internal Python Boolean type, but it is hidden in
>the interpreter.  How come?

I suspect the basic reason is because C doesn't have one. But that's 
just a guess.

I personally dislike the concept that "every variable has a boolean 
value", and the associated fact that utterly different values have the 
same logical value. But hey, a large numer of languages work this way 
and it doesn't seem to cause too much trouble. (Though I think Python 
would benefit from a built in function that tests for logical equality 
-- if I'm missing one, please enlighten me; the best I've come up with 
so far is: not a == not b, which is not exactly obvious.)

But even if the Python development team suddenly became convinced that a 
separate boolean type was the way to go, it'd be quite a challenge to 
implement such a thing without breaking a vast amount of existing code.

-- Russell