while 1 vs while True

[Steve Holden]

Raymond Hettinger wrote:
>>Dan Bishop wrote:
>>
>>>>Out of pure curiousity,
>>>>Why wasn't 'While True' optimized also?
>>>
>>>
>>>Probably has something to do with "True" and "False" not being
>>>constants.
> 
> 
> [Nick Coghlan]
> 
>>Yup. Even 'None' only just became a constant in 2.4.
>>
>>I don't know if 'True' and 'False' are in line for similar treatment (there
> 
> are
> 
>>obvious backwards compatibility issues in doing so).
> 
> 
> It is unlike to before Py3.0.  Making them constants would break the reams of
> compatability code:  True, False = (1==1), (1!=1).
> 
It was unfortunate that so many people chose to use that for 
compatibility, when if they'd used the same code that the win32all 
extensions did they could have retained backward compatibility even 
across a change to constants:

try:
     True
except AttributeError:
     True, False = (1==1), (1!=1)

regards
  Steve
-- 
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