for / while else doesn't make sense

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Monday 23 May 2016 03:25, Random832 wrote:

> Why shouldn't Python do this?
> 
> Imagine some future version of Python:
>>>> x = 2/3
>>>> x
> (2/3)
>>>> type(x)
> <class 'rational'>


You would have a lot of trouble convincing Guido that this was a good idea, 
because that's what ABC used to do, and it was a performance killer, as well as 
being horrible to work with.

Rationals like 2/3 are fine. But the trouble is, by the time you've done a 
handful of calculations, you've probably got something like

5529748264768821/18014398509481984

and after a few dozen calculations you might have something like:

391303115027894573050315966944902650883330501592661514878103414119479331609846605406995557395414953/14109433351889544757158673468211253755455976544516272594484740551000078367597300074881469573563940864

and it just keeps getting worse and worse.


For bonus points, without converting to floats, can you tell which of of the 
two numbers is bigger by sight?



-- 
Steve