[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 285: Adding a bool type

[John Roth]

"Erik Max Francis" <max at alcyone.com> wrote in message
news:3CAA335F.4A17F6FF at alcyone.com...
> Guido van Rossum wrote:
>
> > I don't see the introduction of the bool type as painful at all.
> >
> > I find getting it accepted painful though. :-(
>
> I think of it in very simple terms:  True and False are just
> self-documenting values that indicate that you're talking about a
> Boolean value rather than something else -- and enabling the ability
to
> write self-documenting code is always good.  For backward
compatibility
> concerns, bool must be implemented as (effectively) a subclass of int.
> Very little code will break with the introduction of the PEP.  That is
> all.

I absolutely agree. For me, the entire point is providing
a **standard** way of expressing **in the code** the
notion that a particular variable only takes two values:
True and False. This is such a common case that it deserves
to be promoted to be a part of the language.

That is, after all, what programming languages are for:
to make my job as a programmer easier. When they
include standard ways of doing the things that need doing
in standard ways, they accomplish this.

Linguistic purity is a great topic for discussion over
pizza and beer, but if it gets in the way of adopting
something as simple as this, then there is something
radically wrong with our priorities.

John Roth

>
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