[issue23201] Decimal(0)**0 is an error, 0**0 is 1, but Decimal(0) == 0

[Tim Peters]

Tim Peters added the comment:

This is easy:  Cowlishaw is wrong on this one, but nothing can be done about it ;-)

Confusion arises because most people think of 0**0 as a value (where it certainly must be 1) while others seem to view it as some kind of shorthand for expressing a limit (as the base and/or exponent _approach_ 0, in which case there is no correct answer - it's an "indeterminate form").

It's in the "spirit of 754" to take inputs at face value, viewing them as infinitely precise.  So viewing 0**0 as anything other than 1 in this context is perverse.

Centuries of history distilled to a few paragraphs here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponentiation#Zero_to_the_power_of_zero

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nosy: +tim.peters

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