[Python-Dev] an alternative to embedding policy in PEP 418

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 9:04 PM, Victor Stinner <victor.stinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2012/4/4 Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net>:
>> On Wed, 4 Apr 2012 02:02:12 +0200
>> Victor Stinner <victor.stinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > Lennart Regebro wrote:
>>> >> Well, get_clock(monotonic=True, highres=True) would be a vast
>>> >> improvement over get_clock(MONOTONIC|HIRES).
>>>
>>> I don't like this keyword API because you have to use a magically
>>> marker (True). Why True? What happens if I call
>>> get_clock(monotonic=False) or get_clock(monotonic="yes")?
>>
>> Since when are booleans magical? Has this thread gone totally insane?
>
> It depends if the option supports other values. But as I understood,
> the keyword value must always be True.

If I were looking at that in documentation, my automatic guess would
be that the only thing that matters is whether the argument
compares-as-true or not. So get_clock(monotonic="yes") would be the
same as =True, and =False wouldn't be. And get_clock(monotonic="No,
you idiot, I want one that ISN'T") would... be stupid. But it'd still
function :)

Chris Angelico