Third Draft: Pep for Deprecating Builtins

[Alex Martelli]

Boris Borcic wrote:
        ...
> Octal has some virtues, e.g. 365 == 0555 making it easy
> to remember the number of days in a usual (non-leap) year :)

I'm surprised you miss the main advantage -- 0666, the Number
of the Beast in octal, translates to decimal 438, the A.D. in which
Emperor Theodosius II promulgated the Theodosian Code, the
wildly antisemitic laws which, among other things, forbid Christians
to even give alms to Jews, forbid Jews to hold State office or build
synagogues, condemned to death any Jew converting a Christian.

Surely this is therefore a number which is often handy in the everyday
practice of programming, and even thinking of eventually making a
non-builtin of the precious Python function that helps us work with a
numbering system which has such wondrous properties is unholy.


Alex