prePEP: Decimal data type

[John Roth]

"Alex Martelli" <aleax at aleax.it> wrote in message
news:fHTob.394884$R32.13090937 at news2.tin.it...
> John Roth wrote:
>    ...
> > I decided to snip the prior piece rather than argue about your
> > misconception of what I intended. This would have been obvious
> > if you had left the context of my comment in, rather than starting
> > it out with my response to something invisible to the reader.
>
> I prefer to trim posts from such generally irrelevant history,
> but if you think "This would have been obvious" here is ALL you
> had to say in your first post in response to the point, which
> you quoted in full, about what operators should apply to decimals:
>
> """
> > 12. To support the basic aritmetic (``+, -, *, /, //, **, %, divmod``)
and
> >     comparison (``==, !=, <, >, <=, >=, cmp``) operators in the
following
> >     cases:
> >
> >        - Decimal op Decimal
> >        - Decimal op otherType
> >        - otherType op Decimal
> >        - Decimal op= Decimal
> >        - Decimal op= otherType
> >
> >     Check `Items In Discussion`_ to see what types could OtherType be,
and
> >     what happens in each case.
>
>
>
> > 13. To support unary operators (``-, +, abs``).
>
> OK.
> """
>
> Now try to argue _with a straight face_ that, quoting this part entirely,
it
> "would have been obvious" that you wanted to abrogate the applicability of
> normal division operators to decimals, and therefore did not need as your
> cherished "unbounded precision decimal" a full rational number in some
> form.  Pah.
>
> Assuming that's what you intended in that post, I think you made a huge
> mistake in NOT saying so, rather just placing a meek "OK" there, and are
> now trying to imply that instead of your huge mistake there were some
> "misconception" (or as you said earlier, even LESS defensibly!,
> "preconceptions" [!!!]) on MY part.  In my view of the world, it's all
> right to make a mistake (we're humans), but it's NOT ok to try to attack
> others rather than admitting and apologizing for one's mistake.

Alex, this whole pissing match started because *YOU* assumed,
without any justification that I could see, that I was suggesting that
we use rational numbers.

You devoted several paragraphs in what I took to be a highly
patronizing explanation of things I know very well, and in any
case had no intention of getting into in the context of this pre-pep.

I have attempted to set this straight in the next post on the other
chain of this thread. You're the one that made the blunder. You're
the one that owes me the appology.

John Roth
>
>
> Alex
>