Future division patch available (PEP 238)

[Paul Boddie]

Stephen Horne <steve at lurking.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<7u6nltoqdnqjjdiquu6ngtaruflhvbvdl5 at 4ax.com>...
>
> If you really want a division operator that treats everything as
> floats, then *that* is the new functionality and *that* should be the
> new operator. I don't mind such an operator being added - I will
> simply feel free to ignore it.

Indeed. If only // were introduced as the operator with this new
functionality, leaving / as it is now, there wouldn't be 100s of
messages trying to rationalise and justify the whole affair of
changing the / operator in the first place, let alone the 100s of
messages attempting to rationalise Python's "position" on arithmetic.

> Python would be a laughing stock without a division operator, and it
> will certainly be a laughing stock if we can't rely on it to do the
> same thing from one release to the next. It's a far to fundamental
> change just to please people with a particular mindset.

I get the feeling that those people who follow the Python development
list tend to work their way to what they believe to be sensible
conclusions, but run the risk of becoming out of touch with everyone
else. The big danger for Python is that they become so out of touch
that half the Python community decide to "fork off".

Paul