[Python-Dev] a quit that actually quits

[Samuele Pedroni]

Michael Chermside wrote:
> The F-bot writes:
> 
>>in reality, some things are carefully thought out and craftily im-
>>plemented, some things are engineering tradeoffs made at a certain time,
>>and some things are just accidents -- but python-dev will happily defend
>>the current solution with the same energy, no matter what it is.
> 
> 
> +1 QOTF.
> 
> Seriously... I've seen this behavior also, but I haven't ever thought
> about it as clearly as Fredrik does here. When we go to answer questions
> we ought to pause briefly first and decide which of these categories
> applies to a given piece of behavior. I think users will be understanding
> if we're honest about what are the accidents -- every language or
> software package has some, and just because it's an accident does NOT
> mean we should "fix" it.
> 

it's indeed a matter of trade-offs. Converting NameErrors into commands
doesn't look like a good trade off in terms of expectations management
and understandable behavior. Ka-Ping Yee ExitHatch still seem a 
reasonable improvement. Fernando Perez considerations about Python
vs. "commands" and prefixing and extra-linguistic extensions seem
also on spot. It's not a matter of defending the status quo, more about
what kind of price is reasonable for DWIM.