PEP0238 lament

[Gareth McCaughan]

Guido van Rossum wrote:

> (2) A command line option to change division semantics.  I propose
>     -Dnew to make the new division semantics the default, -Dold to
>     make the old semantics the default.  -Dold will be the default
>     until the wait period is over, then -Dnew will become the
>     default.  The -D option is retired when nobody needs -Dold any
>     more.  Modules that contain a future statement always use the new
>     default; there's no way to force the old default on a *per-module*
>     basis (since that would be a language feature that could never be
>     removed).

Two micro-optimizations.

1. -Dfloat / -Dint (or -Dinteger) would be better, unless
   you're prepared to rule out now the possibility that 2.5
   might introduce the option of using rationals or decimal
   floats.

2. Unless you're worried that it would encourage the appearance
   of other scary issues like this one, a more "extensible"
   convention (-Ddiv=float ?) might be better.

-- 
Gareth McCaughan  Gareth.McCaughan at pobox.com
.sig under construc