[Python-Dev] Revamping Python's Numeric Model

[Moshe Zadka]

[Guido]
> Scheme has no real users -- only CS types. :-)

I resent that! I'm not a CS type: I never studied CS, and I refuse
to stand for that kind of mud slinging.

[Guido]
> ABC's forcing was as simple as writing ~x or mixing inexact numbers.
> We did have the notion that 1.0 was an exact literal (to me it looks
> exact!) so maybe that was an additional problem.

Let me clarify: exactness *is* in the operations. Since Python is
an OO language, an object decides semantics of operations on it. "1.0"
decides to have inexact operations on it, no matter how exact it
looks to you.

[Guido]
> Agreed.  I think what makes me feel uneasy is that your proposal
> assumes that there is One True Numeric Type, and all the rest are
> second-class numbers.  Python currently makes no such claim: there are
> many numeric types built in and you can add your own types that play
> along.

My proposal doesn't change that, as far as it's true. (And it isn't
really true: I cant have my new types as literals, or as results of
existing operations). It changes the number of built-in numeric types
to 1.
-- 
Moshe Zadka <sig@zadka.site.co.il>
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