seeking deeper (language theory) reason behind Python design choice

Python python at bladeshadow.org
Mon May 14 11:38:19 EDT 2018


On Sun, May 13, 2018 at 09:46:48PM +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:
> > I expect that these days it will be rare, since most C compilers would
> > default to warning about it if you run with warnings enabled.
> 
> That assumes that you regularly run with warnings enabled. While that
> might seem like a no-brainer, unfortunately it isn't. With the number
> of C compilers out there, it's hard to make sure your code compiles
> cleanly with -Wall on every one of them; and if there's a spew of
> warnings, one more isn't going to be noticed. So for a large codebase,
> it's entirely possible that it WON'T regularly be compiled with
> warnings enabled.

As it happens, my team does compile with -Wall -Werror at all times in
every project (though we do rely on some third-party libraries as
dependencies which we can not). But I do agree with your point...

> Warnings certainly help, but they're not a complete solution.

Absolutely correct.  If you're not doing THOROUGH code reviews, and
not thoroughly testing your code, your job is only half done.  You
should be your own first reviewer, and then have a second someone
competent review it after you do.  You should also be your own first
tester, and then have someone competent test it after you.  In both
cases, ideally the "someone competent" would be a team of someones,
though that's not always practical.  But I believe this process is
absolutely essential to producing non-trivial quality software.




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