[Python-Dev] python 3 niggle: None < 1 raises TypeError

[M.-A. Lemburg]

On 17.02.2014 21:12, Tim Peters wrote:
> [...]
>
> Guido wanted to drop all the "arbitrary but consistent" mixed-type
> comparison crud for Python 3. Nothing special about None in that.  As
> already noted, the various `datetime` types were the first to
> experiment with implementing full blown Python3-ish mixed-type
> comparison rules.  After the first two times that caught actual bugs
> in code using the new types, there was no turning back.  It's not so
> much that Python 3 finished the job as that Python 2 started it ;-)

Well, I guess it depends on how you look at it.

None worked as "compares less than all other objects" simply due
to the fact that None is a singleton and doesn't implement the
comparison slots (which for all objects not implementing rich
comparisons, meant that the fallback code triggered in Python 2).

In Python 3 the special casing was dropped and because None
still doesn't implement the comparison slot (tp_richcompare this time),
it doesn't support ordering comparisons anymore.

Now, the choice to have None compare less than all other objects
may have been arbitrary, but IMO it was a good, consistent and
useful choice.

So why not bring it back and perhaps this time in a way that
actually does work consistently for all Python objects by
implementing the tp_richcompare slot on PyNoneType objects
and documenting it ?!

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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