Language change and code breaks

[Steven D. Majewski]

On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, Guido van Rossum wrote:

> Very good sumary, Terry.  I'm beginning to get second thoughts about
> integer division -- maybe it's better to leave well enough alone, and
> try to fix areas of the language that could really stand some fixing
> (such as subclassing built-in types).

Is it possible that changes to built-in types to allow subclassing could
be made to also allow redefining operators for built-in types ? 

Then "/" could be mapped to either behaviour, and gradual introduction
could be a matter of changing the default behaviour in a future version. 

I know some folks will object to the idea of redefining basic function,
but Python already allows that for a lot of built-in functions (import
and others). 

[I haven't had the stamina to read every message in this thread, so please
 forgive me if this has already been suggested.]

-- Steve Majewski