[Python-ideas] PEP 505: None-aware operators

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 12:59:20AM +0200, Giampaolo Rodola' wrote:

> You're back at "since we have X that justifies the addition of Y" [1]
> and AFAICT that's the only argument you have provided so far in a 100+
> messages discussion.

The PEP itself justifies the addition of Y.

Chris' argument, and mine, is countering *your* arguments in opposition. 
It is not a positive argument for Y, since the PEP does an admirable job 
at that. It is a response to the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) that 
Python is becoming "Perl-like", or even more ludicrously, like APL and 
J. (That's David Mertz' position.)

To my eyes, your opposition basically comes down to "it is new, and I 
don't like it because it is new". It looks to me like pure resistance to 
change simply due to dislike of change. See also David's response that 
he is against the changes made to Python over the last five years.

The concrete arguments you are making against this change apply equally 
to existing features. If your (and others') arguments are valid now, 
they would have been equally valid back in Python 1.5. If punctuation is 
unreadable and Perlish, so is "." and ":" punctuation. If ?? is bad 
because it is "implicit", then so is import or sorted.

Arguments by slogan ("explicit is better than implicit") are rarely good 
arguments -- especially when nobody seems to be able to define implicit 
and explicit explicitly.

As for the argument that Python is "mature" and so we should resist 
change, we could have said the same thing going all the way back to 
Python 1.5 and probably beyond. Have you tried using Python 1.5 
recently? Or even Python 2.4. I have. I wonder how I managed to get 
anything useful done.

Some of us think that Python 3.6 or 3.7 is fantastic and so good that 
every addition to the language can only make it worse. I suggest that 
when we have Python 4.5 or 4.6, we will wonder how on earth we managed 
to get any useful work done with Python 3.7.

The Python community has always been conservative and resistant to 
change, but the level of conservativeness is now pushing towards fear 
of change rather than justifiable caution about adding new features that 
cannot easily be reverted.


-- 
Steve