PEP 285: Adding a bool type

[Robin Becker]

In article <a8v6bp$nc3$1 at slb1.atl.mindspring.net>, Andrew Dalke
<dalke at dalkescientific.com> writes
>Robin Becker:
>>Scripts in sed or awk that are 20 years old still run because their
>>languages are stable.
>
>Just this morning I read a message from one mailing list which was
>trying to get their awk script working.  The problem was a difference
>between nawk and awk.  I myself recall prefering nawk over awk because
>it let me access multiple files at the same time.
>
>Since there are several different implementation of awk (awk, nawk,
>and gawk) each with different features, I wouldn't suggest using
>them as good examples.  Judging from the ChangeLog, gawk added some new
>features a year ago.  Eg,
>
.....
I think you make my point as the scripts I refer to didn't use any of
the nawk/gawk features so they still run. I'm sure that there are old
scripts which have been broken by recent sed/gawk/awk implementations. 

Nor do I claim that 1.4 scripts don't run in modern python. My worry is
that some don't. That worry makes every python script less certain.

Of course now you indicate that awk/gawk/sed et al have changed that
will make me doubt the certainty of those scripts.

The implementers of the new features broke things not the original
author, but the vandals get kudos and the innocent pay the bill.

Uncertainty will no doubt reach infinity as the first quantum computers
are being introduced at which fuzzy time no scripts will work.
-- 
Robin Becker