[Python-Dev] pyc files, constant folding and borderline portability issues

[Cesare Di Mauro]

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 07:22PM, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>> In my experience it's better to discover a bug at compile time rather
>> than
>> at running time.
>
> That's my point though, which you seem to be ignoring: if the user
> explicitly writes "1/0" it is not likely to be a bug. That's very
> different than "1/x" where x happens to take on zero at runtime --
> *that* is likely  bug, but a constant folder can't detect that (at
> least not for Python).
>
> --
> --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

I agree. My only concern was about user mistyping that can leed to an
error interceptable by a stricter constant folder.

But I admit that it's a rarer case compared to an explicit exception
raising such the one you showed.

Cesare