April 4, 2002
2:05 a.m.
Despite the negative feedback, I've decided to accept the PEP. The most important perceived problem is that newbies tend to write
if x == True: ...
where they should write
if x: ...
I believe this problem should be solved by education (the Zen master hits the student on the head with a stick, and the student gets enlightenment) rather than by holding back what I believe will be a useful feature.
Would it not be "relatively" easy to add a compiler-time warning for most uses of this dangerous idiom?
I think this would be a job for PyChecker. Neal? --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)